Texas lawmakers moved forward with a bill Tuesday that would require welfare applicants to be screened for drug use.

The bill authored by State Senator Jane Nelson, the Republican chairwoman of the committee, was approved by the state senate’s Health and Human Services Committee.

It would require applicants to the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program to undergo screening by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

Under Nelson’s bill, applicants who appear to use drug or have been convicted for drug use will be subjected to testing. Applicants who test positive for drugs would be barred from receiving TANF funds for 12 months.

“Drug abuse destroys families, harms children and prevents individuals from living healthy, independent lives,” Nelson said in a press release on Tuesday. “Because TANF is a direct cash assistance program, we have a responsibility to ensure that these funds are not being used to support a person’s drug habit.”

Texas Governor Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst have thrown their support behind the bill.

“Texas taxpayers will not subsidize or tolerate illegal drug abuse,” Perry said in a statement in November. “Every dollar that goes to someone who uses it inappropriately is a dollar that can’t go to a Texan who needs it for housing, child care or medicine.”

One hundred thousand Texans a year are enrolled in TANF, according to Nelson’s office.

The bill will go to the Texas House of Representatives if it passes a vote in the full Senate.

McALLEN, Texas -- Authorities say a 10-year-old boy shot by his mother during a standoff at a Texas welfare office has died.

Laredo police spokesman Joe Baeza says Timothy Grimmer died Thursday at a San Antonio hospital. His 12-year-old sister died of her wounds on Wednesday.

Police say their mother, Rachelle Grimmer, shot the children and then killed herself Monday following a standoff with police at a welfare office where they had been denied food stamps.

Also on this case:

The Texas Department of Health and Human Services says the agency rejected Rachelle Grimmer's application because she didn't submit enough information.

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 SAN ANTONIO -- The grandmother of two children shot by their mother inside a Texas welfare office says her former daughter-in-law had a history of mental problems.

The 10-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter of Rachelle Grimmer remained in critical condition Wednesday. Authorities say Grimmer shot her children and then killed herself during a standoff in a state building where the family had been denied food stamps.

Mary Lee Shepherd of Montana said Wednesday that Texas officials should have given Grimmer the food stamps and then removed her grandchildren from Grimmer's custody.

Officials: Mom who shot her 2 kids was denied food stamps

Shepherd says she and her son Dale Grimmer, the children's father, had contacted social workers at least three times. She says they worried Grimmer could harm the children.

Rachelle Grimmer and her children moved to Texas from Ohio this summer.

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SEATTLE -- A Seattle chiropractor and his wife live in a $1.2 million waterfront home and have spent the past eight years flying to Moscow, Paris, Israel, Turkey, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

All the while, federal authorities say, the couple was collecting more than $100,000 in welfare.

Now, the U.S. attorney's office is suing David Silverstein and Lyudmila Shimonova, accusing them of filing false claims and demanding that the couple pay back more than $135,000 in federal housing assistance since 2003. Prosecutors are also seeking tens of thousands of dollars in fines.

In gaining Section 8 housing assistance, Shimonova represented that she lived alone with her two children and that her household assets were less than $5,000. Silverstein received the monthly benefits of $1,272 as Shimonova's purported landlord, the government said.

Shimonova also received benefits under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, as well as Social Security cash reserved for people who can't work due to age or disability and whose assets fall below a certain threshold — $3,000 for a married couple or $2,000 for a single person, the complaint said.

AP

The $1.2 million waterfront home where prosecutors say a Seattle chiropractor and his wife lived while claiming welfare assistance is seen. The U.S. attorney's office filed a civil lawsuit Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, accusing David Silverstein and Lyudmila Shimonova of filing false claims.

"Defendants have separately and, it appears, in conjunction with one another made false representations to various state and federal agencies in order to obtain federally funded benefits," assistant U.S. attorneys Harold Malkin and Kayla Stahman wrote.

Meanwhile, they were traveling the world, according to Department of Homeland Security records.

Michael Radyshewsky, a federal welfare fraud investigator, wrote in an application to search the couple's home that they took weeklong trips to Moscow in 2003, Dominican Republic in 2005, and Mexico and France in 2009. In 2007, they went for 12 days to Israel, and this past June they took a two-week trip to Turkey.

Silverstein said Tuesday his lawyer asked him not to comment, and his lawyer, David Allen, did not immediately return a message. The home did not appear to have a listed phone number, and Shimonova's lawyer, Michele Shaw, did not return an email seeking comment.

The investigation included surveillance of the three-bedroom, 2,300-square-foot home on Lake Washington, during which agents observed his black Jaguar parked there frequently.

Though Shimonova had claimed she was single and lived there alone, Silverstein listed it as his residence on his driver's license and passport application, the prosecutors said.

But in documents filed so that he could receive the housing assistance, he listed his office as his residence to conceal that he was living with Shimonova — not her landlord, they said.

Furthermore, it appeared clear that the pair was actually married. Silverstein wrote on the website of his chiropractic business: "On a personal note, I am happily married with two children, whose careers are in medicine and Middle Eastern studies. As a family, we all enjoy snow-shoeing, mountain climbing and ocean sports."

A report of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle for the 2010 fiscal year listed "Mila and Dr. David Silverstein" as donors.

In addition to failing to disclose the marriage or living situation, Shimonova also failed to disclose bank accounts in her name containing tens of thousands of dollars, prosecutors said.

The lawsuit seeks to have the couple pay $11,000 in fines for each false claim the couple made. The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment on whether criminal charges are forthcoming.

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LAREDO, Texas -- A mother who had been denied welfare benefits shot her two children and then killed herself after a seven-hour standoff at a government social services office in Laredo, Texas, police said.

"The children are alive, but they are in critical condition," Laredo police investigator Joe Baeza told KGNS-TV, an NBC affiliate in Laredo on Tuesday.

The children, a 10-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, were unconscious when taken from the scene, he said. Their names, along with the name of the woman, were not released by police.

The standoff began around 5 p.m. Monday afternoon. Baeza said the woman was speaking with two employees when she pulled out a gun and said she wanted to speak to a supervisor. When the supervisor arrived, he persuaded her to let the employees go in exchange for keeping him.

"He told the woman he would remain with her," Baeza said, adding "He acted quite courageously."

Read KGNS's coverage: Standoff shootings update by Laredo police investigator Baeza

Meanwhile, about 25 other people in the building were moved to safety, police said.

Police negotiators stayed on the phone with the woman throughout the evening, but she kept hanging up, Baez said. She let the supervisor go unharmed around 7:45 p.m., but stayed inside the office with her children. After hanging up the phone around 11:45 p.m., police heard three shots, and a SWAT team entered the building. Inside, they found her body and her two wounded children.

The 38-year-old woman had recently moved to the area from Zanesville, Ohio, east of Columbus, Baeza said. She told negotiators about a litany of complaints against state and federal government agencies. It sounded like she had been denied services several months ago, Baeza said, but it wasn't clear what specifically triggered Monday's standoff.

"This wasn't like a knee-jerk reaction," Baeza said, adding that the woman felt she was owed restitution of some sort.

"The overall understanding is that this was more than just a one-issue crisis," he told KGNS-TV.

This article includes reporting from NBC station KGNS in Laredo and The Associated Press.

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