Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

"Texas in the Tub: DPS"

The headline in the San Antonio Express-News on July 13 read: "Troopers say they are just fatigued."  It was a telling story among a series of stories showing that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) is in trouble.

In the story, troopers described an agency suffering an officer shortage and beset with grueling working conditions, many officers routinely working six or seven straight days and sometimes 10 or 11.   

Weeks before, numerous news accounts had detailed the now-infamous arson fire at the Governor's Mansion, where a lone DPS officer was left guard on a weekend, and a scathing Sunset Commission Report citing multiple deficiencies at the agency—many the direct result of irresponsible underfunding.

Today, DPS is 250 officers short; and with a number of officers soon retiring, that number could reach 600 over the next three years.  With DPS officers getting paid significantly less than Border Patrol or other competing law enforcement organizations throughout the state and positions in the private sector, even that number could grow.

Does this sound familiar?  

Over the past weeks, we have been telling the stories of agency after agency in crisis:  Children Protective Services (CPS), the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), and others.  

Every one is an example of failed government—which is Grover Norquist's definition of "success."  Norquist is known for his infamous quote, "Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub."

Let's recall some history.  After the 2003 legislative session, when Rick Perry ordered massive budget cuts then cut 300,000 Texas children from CHIP, Grover Norquist traveled with Perry to the Bahamas.  The "policy" trip included private school voucher advocate James Leininger and Texas Public Policy CEO Brooke Rollins.

Ironically, 82 days after the fire at the Governor’s Mansion, DPS is now in Grover’s tub.

Today, the people of Texas expect a government that works.  The DPS plays an important role in keeping our highways safe, keeping our vehicles safe, protecting Texas' history—and increasingly, assisting in the war on terror in a post-9/11 world.  

And along the border, including the district I represent, DPS will play an increasingly vital role in fighting violent drug cartels.  This year to date, nearly 900 people have been killed our sister-city, Juarez—more than the total number of murders in Mexico City and that of most major United States cities last year.  

To succeed against these challenges, Texas law enforcement must have the will to fight, to identify who we can work with, and to stay the course.  We will need an effective, targeted DPS team aimed at arresting key cartel operatives, forfeiting cartel assets, and disrupting corridor movement of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, all in coordination with local and Federal law enforcement.  

As a solution to DPS's challenges, Perry is backing a one-million-dollar study on the agency.  But, we already know that it is irresponsible underfunding that is drowning DPS.  Now it’s time to fix DPS, not study it.

Eliot Shapleigh