Suehs, Armendariz, Cook, Berman, Bowers, Simpson, Cesinger, Dunn, Taylor, Cornyn, Nielsen-Gammon

Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs, in The Texas Tribune: "Whether you're in Medicaid or you opt out of Medicaid, your debate is fundamentally the same. What does our safety net health care system look like, how are we going to deliver it, and how are we going to pay for it? And whether you're in Medicaid or out of Medicaid, if you want savings, you have to reduce the number of people you serve. And that's not a pleasant exercise."

EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz, telling The Dallas Morning News why he ordered Range Production Co. — over the objections of the Texas Railroad Commission — to protect two families found to have natural gas in their water wells, on the state regulators: "They want more data and believe that action now is premature. I believe I've got two people whose houses could explode. So we've got to move."

John Cook, of the State Republican Executive Committee, on criticism of an e-mail he sent calling for a "Christian conservative" speaker of the Texas House, quoted in The Texas Observer: "My favorite person that's ever been on this earth is a Jew. How can they possibly think that if Jesus Christ is a Jew, and he's my favorite person that's ever been on this earth?"

Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, on a bill he filed that would jail federal employees who enforce the federal health care law, quoted in the Tyler Morning Telegraph: "Thomas Jefferson believed in nullification. I believe in nullification, and I just wanted to try it."

Recently defeated Angelina County Justice of the Peace R.G. Bowers, who has easily won each of his elections since 1988 as a Democrat, to the Houston Chronicle: "They were so anti-Obama that they just pushed one button. I said they couldn't spell R.G., so they just spelled R."

Newly elected Republican Rep. David Simpson of Longview to the Tyler Morning Telegraph on the challenges Republicans in the Legislature will face next year: "We are keenly aware that we are going to have to work together to get things done. That's not my fear. That will eventually happen. My fear is compromising when we don't have to compromise."

Katherine Cesinger, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, on plans to restart the controversial Alien Transfer and Exit Program, which deports undocumented immigrants arrested in Arizona back to Mexico through Texas ports: "We weren't in favor of it then, and we certainly aren't now."

Author and Austin screenwriter Si Dunn, on the Texas Film Commission's denial of incentives for Texas film maker Robert Rodriguez's immigration film Machete, in the Austin-American Statesman: "Texas needs to do a much better job of politically supporting its movie and television industry ... The notion that state legislators somehow can protect Texas' image from 'negative light' is just laughable — and sadly naive."

Rep. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, to The Texas Tribune on the new Democratic minority in the Texas House: "I'm encouraging the Democrats not to go the bomb-throwing route and to be healthy and reasonable."

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, in a fundraising e-mail, on the influence of GOP midterm gains on the recent tax compromise in Washington: "President Obama's decision yesterday to join with Republicans in opposing the largest tax increase in American history was made not because he had a sudden change in political or economic philosophy."

Texas' state climatologist, John Nielsen-Gammon, on the rise of greenhouse gases, quoted in the Tribune: "The increase is definitely caused by humans."