The Dallas Morning News. Wharton political activist Debra Medina has questioned whether Texas needs a state child welfare agency. Medina, a Republican candidate for governor, suggested over the weekend that the state perhaps hand off child-protection duties to local law enforcement agencies closer to the people.

That would mean abolishing Child Protective Services, which after suffering some budget cuts in the mid-1990s has grown rapidly under Gov. Rick Perry, in response to criticisms it was failing the state’s most vulnerable youngsters and needed more caseworkers and support staff.

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By CBS 11/TXA 21. November 11 will mark the one-year anniversary of the deaths of Janice Carroll and her mother Jeanne Carroll.  The two women were murdered inside their Dallas home.  The gunman was Janice’s husband, Keith Hill; he committed suicide.

“It was a horrific event that happened to our family,” said Jennifer Carroll. “My mother and my sister were amazing women.”

Now, the Carroll Family wants to honor Janice and Jeanne’s lives with a special fundraiser called Janice’s Kids.  The Carroll Family says Janice worked for Texas Child Protective Services and treated the children as her own.

Click here to watch and read the CBS11TV video and story. 

By J.J. Smith. ROCKWALL – State Rep. Jodie Laubenberg (R-Rockwall) called on about 80 members of Rockwall’s Republican Men’s Club June 14 to contact Governor Rick Perry’s office right away to ask him to veto Senate Bill 1440, which will clear the way for CPS to arbitrarily enter homes and take children away from parents without a court order.

The legislation has already passed the House and Senate and is sitting on the Governor’s desk. It will become law unless he vetoes it before June 21, 2009.

The bill is unnecessary because there is already a mechanism in place to protect children in emergency situations, according to Laubenberg.

“I do not want to allow unchecked arbitrary access by CPS into Texans’ homes,” she said.

She cited the CPS seizure of 462 children living in the “Yearning for Zion” polygamist community in El Dorado TX as an example of what can go wrong if CPS is allowed arbitrary access. All but one of the children were returned after the CPS raid was later ruled “unwarranted” by the Texas Third Court of Appeals and Texas Supreme Court.

The whole incident was based upon several anonymous phone calls, without thorough investigation by CPS before seizing the children, as it turned out.