Thanks for stopping by my campaign website.
Please take a moment to look around. We’ve done a lot in two short years. But there’s still more to do, and I hope I can count on you for great ideas and the kind of support that will make the difference again.
I made a commitment to be your independent voice. Please join me so that, together, we can continue to find common ground for Texas.
Posted on June 25, 2008
Our health care delivery system is in crisis and deserves to be a top priority when Texas lawmakers convene in Austin next January. At a time of unprecedented population growth, more Texans are uninsured than in any other state in the nation, health care and insurance costs have soared, and critical shortages in nursing threaten the quality and adequacy of health care delivery and accessibility.
As a former critical care nurse, I know health care providers need to work together so all Texans can count on access to quality patient care. That’s why we focused much of our attention last session on the nursing shortage, with particular emphasis on expanding the number of nurse faculty at the state’s public colleges.
Now, let’s join together to increase the number of graduate-level nursing students, facilitate hospital-based partnerships with nursing schools to leverage the expertise of clinically-based nurses in providing clinical instruction, and provide support for nursing students in an effort to improve retention and graduation rates.
Critical Health Care CrisisPosted on June 16, 2008
Click here for health care document
Rising College Tuition Part of Big ConversationPosted on June 11, 2008
While China and India continue to invest in the next generation of our global competitors, political leaders at the State Capitol continue to shortchange our own colleges and universities.
Texas lawmakers deregulated college tuition five years ago. Since that time, UT-Austin, the state’s premier public university, has seen its share of funding from the Texas Legislature fall to a mere 17 percent of its total budget.
In fact, state spending on higher education has failed to keep pace with inflation or growing enrollments, leading to average tuition hikes across the entire University of Texas and other systems. Concern is also rising that many middle-class families are being priced out of the college market at exactly the moment when other states and nations are expanding access to their universities.
Topping the next session’s agenda will be a search for a balanced solution that boosts essential public investment in our university system and keeps costs affordable for every eligible Texan. More…
Big Economic Challenges Fuel Our Big ConversationPosted on May 15, 2008
Texas has built at least three economic empires on our natural resources, from cattle to cotton to crude oil. Now we are poised to help lead the next economic boom in the emerging frontier of solar energy.
- “As with the previous booms, Texas has a comparative advantage based on our abundant natural resource that can handle our financial well-being and our energy needs at the same time,” I write in this month’s column for the Westlake Picayune. “Technology is making this new boom more likely every day, and our challenge is to prepare the marketplace — and our public policies — to take advantage of its emergence.”
How we fuel our energy needs is one of our greatest challenges — and an unparalleled economic opportunity if we make sure state government is part of the solution, not part of the problem.
- No events.