The Senate’s top voice on health matters, Health & Human Services Committee Chairwoman Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Lewisville), called today on Gov. Rick Perry to rescind Friday’s decision to require every sixth-grade girl to be inoculated against the human papillomavirus.

NOTE FROM THSC PAC:
The executive order is based upon school enrollment, and there is no penalty for non-enforcement. There is also a provision in state law allowing parents to opt out of any immunization for their children on the basis of religious or philosophical beliefs.

People wanting to make their opinions known should call the Governor’s opinion line at (800) 252-9600 and their state senator and representative.

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Colleen Parro, RNC/Life spokeswoman, has blasted Gov. Perry for issuing an Executive Order mandating a vaccine for all schoolgirls in Texas entering the 6th grade. The vaccine is supposed to prevent most forms of cervical cancer. A Merck drug, Gardasil is designed to prevent some of the strains of the human papillomavirus(HPV), a sexually-transmitted disease, from leading to cervical cancer.

Saying he is tired of being labeled a "caveman" and a "recluse," voucher supporter Jim Leininger is ready for a public relations offensive. "I think I have a moral responsibility not to stick my head in the sand," he said Thursday in a meeting with The Dallas Morning News editorial board.

Join thousands of other Texans at the State Capitol in Austin to support School Choice in our state.

What: School Choice Rally & Legislator Meetings
When: February 7, 2007, 12 pm – 2 pm
Where: State Capitol in Austin, Texas

Please join John Stossel, Texans for School Choice, and concerned parents across the State for this important rally and legislator meetings. Together, we can ensure our legislators know that Texas parents deserve the right to choose the best educational alternative for their children

Buses will be provided from select cities, but space is limited so contact TSC today to reserve your seat. If you wish to use your own transportation, please contact TSC for parking information. Lunch will be provided for those who RSVP.

Fifty-seven years later, Sumner Elementary School in Topeka is back in the news. That city's board of education is still wrongly preventing the right people from getting into that building. Two educators wanted to use Sumner for a charter school, a public school entitled to operate outside the confinements of dictated curricula and free from many work rules written by teachers unions. Their school would have been a back-to-basics academy from kindergarten through fifth grade, designed to attack Topeka's 23-point gap between the reading proficiency of black and Hispanic third-graders and that of whites.

Two key lawmakers say they want to close a loophole that allows students with bad grades to slip by the state's no-pass, no-play law.

Texas could join several other big states moving the 2008 presidential primaries to early February, making the state a must-visit stop for the growing corps of candidates seeking the White House.

Houston's conservative firebrand, Senator Dan Patrick , won his first legislative victory when he passed a measure that requires the Senate to post the motto of "In God We Trust" immediately on the reader board and by September 1, 2007 to permanently affix the motto on the "white portico located over" the Lt. Governor's podium. Immediately upon the Senate's adjournment, the newly adopted Senate motto was displayed on the reader board in the Senate chamber. The measure wasn't too controversial as Patrick had virtually every senator as a co-sponsor. Now for the law suits.

Well, that's how business gets done, we might grumble. We may not always like the process, but we need our sausage. Could it be worse? Our state legislators showed us this week: A small minority in the House would rather nurse grudges and hurt feelings than do the people's business

What? A political figure determined to keep a promise to the voters? Consider Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s comments in outlining Senate Bill 1, wherein the Legislative Budget Board’s priorities for 2008-09 are embedded. “I’m going to make sure every penny of the local school property tax cut gets to the taxpayers,” affirmed the lieutenant governor.

Aminority of the minority party, the Democrats, in the Texas House managed on Tuesday to trip up House Speaker Tom Craddick, an unpopular Republican, but it's hard to see just why other than an attempt to embarrass him. It's also hard to see just what was accomplished for the people of Texas.

The catastrophic Congressional elections left the GOP feeling divided, dispirited, desperate and whipped. Strategists worried about the party’s long-term association with a bitterly polarizing President, who continued to inspire profound hatred from big segments of the electorate. With resurgent Democrats showing discipline and determination to regain the White House after two terms in the wilderness, the Republican rank-and-file felt uncertain and apathetic about the GOP’s most likely standard bearers.

Although President George W. Bush officially is opposed to setting any time table for getting out of Iraq, senior administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress privately say there cannot be U.S. boots on the ground or blood being spilled in Iraq when 2008 begins if Republicans are to have a chance in next year's elections. That effectively sets a December 2007 deadline for getting out.

Today in Birmingham, England, British police arrested nine people in connection with a terror plot that authorities said followed more than six months of surveillance. Although no official statements have been released, all nine suspects are believed to be of Pakistani origin.

Rudy Giuliani would seem to have all the credentials a candidate for president could want: A hero of 9/11, a crime-busting federal prosecutor, a two-term Republican mayor in an overwhelmingly Democratic city and one of the most admired politicians in the country.

The Houston Chronicle is reporting that Pat Oxford, the managing partner of the Bracewell, Giuliani law firm in Houston, is expected to be named "chairman of (Rudy) Giuliani's presidential exploratory committee". Oxford was a major supporter of George W. Bush when he was Governor of Texas and serves on Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's "kitchen cabinet" as one of her key political advisers.

Conservatives often ask why so many Republicans go native when they get to Washington, D.C. The answer is: Because you don't defend them when they come under relentless attacks from liberal hatchet men.

The New York Times will express regret for hurting the feelings of the family of a Texas soldier after publishing a photograph and a video showing him as he lay dying in Baghdad.

Opposition among state officials is turning into an open revolt against a federal law calling for the creation of standardized driver’s licenses nationwide that are meant to be less vulnerable to fraud.