An HHS Rift?
Sen. Eliot Shapleigh made headlines late last week when he suggested the Senate's Health and Human Services Committee hold hearings on reported abuse and negligence at the Lubbock State School, one of more than a dozen Texas schools for the mentally retarded. But a letter he sent to the committee's chair, Sen. Jane Nelson, didn't get the anticipated response.
Ms. Nelson responded today that it was too soon to hold hearings on the U.S. Justice Department-sanctioned facility -- and that the state needed to come to some kind of "settlement agreement" with the U.S. Attorney General's Office first.
Shapleigh -- who has also written to the Lt. Gov. to request Senate hearings -- is crafting a rebuttal letter, his staffers said, to ask Nelson to reconsider.
Some lawmakers think the abuse reported at the Lubbock school, which agency officials say has been resolved, is the tip of the iceberg of a scandal that could be on par with the TYC's.
Comments
Jane usually knows what she is doing.
Posted by: Tom Washington | March 29, 2007 8:57 PM