So my buddy lived in Iowa near Omaha. He had an older stepdaughter by marriage, and two young sons. When he caught his older (underage) stepdaughter sneaking out of the house and running around to sleep with some boy he grounded her. In retaliation she claimed he was sexually abusing her in hopes that he would be taken and put in jail. He wasn't, but he and the mother lost the two boys, and the older girl even after the older girl admitted that she lied hoping she could break the parents apart, and maybe even put him in jail so he wouldn't mess with her anymore. Iowa officials went to the school to snatch up the kids, and he didn't see them for almost three months because of a false accusation of sexual abuse, that was quickly rebutted by the accuser, and there was never any evidence.

Now his kids never want to go to school because they are afraid someone will come and take them and they won't ever get to see their parents before.

Spare me your Iowa is better than Texas bull. We all have holes in our state laws, and sometimes people use those holes. If we didn't have those holes then innocent people would likely be prosecuted for things they shouldn't be. No state has perfect laws, we just work towards the best ones we can get, and close stupid holes upon use.

You weren't just commentating on the law, which Texas will likely change during our next very session, you also brought the governor into it and the voters who vote for him. I'm not really a big fan of Perry (I have voted for him in the past, and I haven't in the past depending on the fielded candidates), but if you did some research into the governorship in Texas you would know that our Governor is one of the least powerful positions in any state, and likely had little to do with this law. That's because Texas has a history of tragically awful governors from Gov Jim Hogg, who named his daughter Ima to be funny, or lets not forget Governor "Rape is like bad weather. As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." Williams. I also don't believe W did much to progress the state, but he was better than awful, which here is a good governor.

We have pretty much stripped the office of any power besides the bully pulpit. In Texas the office of the Lieutenant Governor is the most powerful position. The Railroad Commission, Treasurer and even the state prosecutor is held in higher regard by most (hence peoples favorable opinion of Senator Hutchinson who was a pretty good treasurer). Look up Lieutenant Governor Texas on Wikipedia if you want to fact check that.

If you really want to know why our laws are generally awful, then look to how laws are actually passed in Texas. We have to actually amend the constitution of the state every time we do anything in Austin. That sounds in theory like it might be a good idea, but it generally results in awful legislation in reality.

Hey, at least our state has a balanced budget :).

The budget is no result of good legislators now. When Texas was a country we ran out debt to unsustainable levels, which did a lot to force Texas to join the union because it couldn't afford to defend itself again against Mexico. If you remember looking at the very old maps in school you will remember that Texas used to stretch to Canada. Texas willingly ceded that land in exchange for the payment of all it's debt. They wrote a forced balanced budget into the constitution because if that headache.

My history may be a bit fuzzy, but it's mostly right.