Eliot Shapleigh

In 1992, Shapleigh joined with hundreds of other progressive El Paso civic leaders to found Unite El Paso. This group of emerging leaders wanted to improve the per capita income in El Paso and create a viable economic model for future growth. From the 1950s, when El Paso’s per capita income levels were 20 percent higher than the Texas average, El Paso's per capita income level began a steep decline. By 2000, levels had fallen to 30 percent below the state average.[2]

Unite El Paso successfully identified major new initiatives to reverse this decline and create a consensus vision for a new, more prosperous El Paso. To launch that vision as one of several initiatives, the group defined a goal of a new four-year medical school as the anchor of a Medical Center of the Americas.

In 1994, Shapleigh, at the request of Judge Edward Marquez of the 65th District Court, was sworn in as an ad litem for the El Paso Court of Inquiry. Several prominent El Paso lawyers joined Judge Marquez to investigate whether the constitutional rights of the citizens of El Paso had been denied due to historically inadequate funding in the areas of transportation, mental health, and nutrition.[3] Judge Marquez later issued an historic and groundbreaking report that identified significant disparities in funding that affected border economic and educational outcomes. Among the several findings in the report, some later became important statewide issues, including state highway funding.[4] In 1999, then Texas Comptroller John Sharp issued a report outlining the various inequities faced by Texas border communities when compared to the rest of the state.[5]

In June 2009, Shapleigh completed his seventh session as a legislator. During his tenure as a state Senator, he has authored more than 600 bills, with particular focus on education, economic development, infrastructure, technology, veteran, and health care issues. Additionally, he has been integral in helping prepare the state for the Department of Defense's periodic reassessment of infrastructure needs, or base realignment and closure (BRAC).

Shapleigh was appointed Chair of the Subcommittee on Base Realignment and Closure in 2004 and continues to lead that subcommittee. He also serves as Vice Chair of the Veteran Affairs & Military Installations Committee. Additionally, Shapleigh is a member of the Health & Human Services, Nominations, and Transportation & Homeland Security Committees.

Some of the key pieces of legislation filed and passed by Shapleigh include:

• Senate Bill 1368 (81st Texas Legislature).[6] In 2009, Shapleigh passed legislation that created the El Paso County Ethics Commission, the first of its kind in Texas. S.B. 1368 will allow the county to establish an independent ethics commission that will adopt, publish and enforce an ethics code governing county public servants.
• Senate Bill 962 (80th Texas Legislature).[7] In 2007, Shapleigh passed legislation that helps El Paso secure state funding to build the fourteen new schools that troops and families moving into the community as a result of base realignment and closure.
• Senate Bill 1479 (79th Texas Legislature).[8] In 2005, Shapleigh passed the Texas Soldier's Payday Protection Act to prevent predatory lending abuses on Texas soldiers. S.B. 1479 barred lenders from taking certain actions against military personnel, including barring collection activities during deployment and requiring lenders to make disclosures to military customers regarding these restrictions.
• Senate Bill 652 (78th Texas Legislature).[9] In 2003, Shapleigh spearheaded the state's preparation for the 2005 BRAC round by authoring the omnibus Texas Military Preparedness Act.
• Senate Bill 749 (77th Texas Legislature).[10] In 2001, Shapleigh passed S.B. 749, which allowed the state agency responsible for environmental regulation to have the ability to work closely with Mexican counterparts on projects of mutual concern.
• Senate Bill 974 (76th Texas Legislature).[11] In 1999, Shapleigh authored the legislation that launched Texas Online,[12] one of the best state online government website in the U.S.[13]
• Senate Bill 758 (75th Texas Legislature).[14] In 1997, Shapleigh's passed legislation that increased criminal penalties for graffiti offenders, created a graffiti eradication fund, and required businesses to restrict access to aerosol paint.

Additional information regarding Shapleigh's sessions in review may be found on his website.[15]

As a result of the Unite El Paso movement, Shapleigh organized the 1998 El Paso Economic Summit, along with civic leaders such as Woody Hunt, UTEP President Diana Natalicio, and Mayor Carlos Ramirez. Hundreds assembled at UTEP to describe a communitywide effort to build capacity for higher wage jobs in El Paso. At that gathering, the number one goal for El Paso's future was identified as establishing a four-year medical school as the anchor of a joint institution Medical Center of the Americas.

Soon thereafter, Shapleigh, County Attorney José Rodriguez, Woody Hunt, Robert Brown, John Montford, and others joined in discussions about how best to establish the medical school and which institution should carry the mission forward. As a result, the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents made establishing a four-year medical school in El Paso an important goal of the System. Over the coming legislative sessions, incremental progress was made in establishing the state's ninth medical school and first since 1977.[16] In 2009, the first new medical students at El Paso's medical school began their studies at the campus. The El Paso Medical School was the first new medical school to be established in the U.S. in 30 years.[17] The school also is the only four-year medical school on the United States/Mexico border.

Shapleigh co-founded Community Scholars, Inc., El Paso's youth leadership program. With a vision of developing the regional community leaders of tomorrow, Community Scholars is a youth leadership development internship program that provides public policy research opportunities for high school sophomores, juniors, and college students. The summer program began in 1998 and operates under Community Scholars, Inc., a grass roots nonprofit corporation.[18]

Shapleigh was one of the Texas Eleven, a group of Democratic Texas State Senators who broke quorum and removed to New Mexico for 46 days in 2003 in a quorum-busting effort aimed at preventing the passage of controversial re-redistricting legislation, spearheaded by then Congressional House Majority leader Tom DeLay, that would have benefited Texas Republicans.

Eventually the Texas Eleven was vindicated by the United States Supreme Court through its rulings that the re-districting could be considered gerrymandering and did bear unconstitutional elements.

Shapleigh led the opposition to the reopening of an ASARCO-operated copper smelter located near downtown El Paso since 1887. The smelter, which had been shut down in 1999 due to low copper prices, filed to renew their air permit application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in 2002. Joined by leaders[19] from across the three-state, two-nation region, Shapleigh and hundreds of activists from El Paso, Juarez, and New Mexico placed enormous pressure on the corporation to justify putting over 7,000 tons of new pollutants into El Paso's air. After eight years, the TCEQ Commissioners granted the permit on a 3-0 vote. The Environmental Protection Agency soon intervened, however, citing deficiencies with the permitting process and ASARCO's air control equipment.[20] As a result, ASARCO announced that the El Paso smelter would not reopen. As of July 2009, it appears the smelter property will be placed in an environmental remediation trust so that it may be cleaned up using funding obtained via ASARCO's bankruptcy.[21]

From 2007 to 2008, Shapleigh served as the chair of the Border Legislative Conference (BLC), a program administered by the Council of State Governments (CSG)-WEST and its regional partner in the South, the Southern Legislative Conference (SLC). The BLC serves as a mechanism for ongoing dialogue and collaboration between state legislators of the United States and Mexico. The BLC fosters the development of shared solutions along the border region through joint consideration of common problems and exchange of information. BLC members are legislators from the ten states along the U.S.-Mexico border: California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas in the U.S., and Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas in Mexico.