Matthews to college... Jones to Railroad?Texas Railroad Commissioner Charles Matthews is the sole finalist for the chancellor's job at the Texas State University System, but won't be collecting that paycheck for at least 21 days, and apparently won't be giving up the job he's got until the new job is actually his. The system's regents named him the lone candidate for the job but have to leave it posted for three more weeks before it's official. As we noted a month ago, Rep. Elizabeth Ames Jones, R-San Antonio, is most often mentioned as his replacement. Assuming this goes smoothly and Matthews resigns, Gov. Rick Perry would appoint a replacement to serve the rest of his term, which ends in 2006. She apparently can't take the appointment if she's sworn in for another term in the House on Tuesday, since they're both elected offices and the terms overlap and so on. If Jones is in line for the job, she won't be among the members settling into the House's leather chairs next week. That would put her in the odd position of hanging out until Matthews is gone for sure before she could step into her next job. (Want to play games with it? Jones could skip the oath next week and, if the RRC deal doesn't come through, could always run in the special election called to fill the seat she didn't take the first time. Or she could bide her time and run for RRC in 2006.) Matthews, who is finishing up his doctorate in higher education administration at the University of Texas, will be replacing Lamar Urbanovsky, who is retiring from the post. TSUS' schools include Angelo State University, Sam Houston State University, Texas State University, Sul Ross State University, and several branches of those institutions. Matthews has been at the Railroad Commission since 1994, the year national Republicans overwhelmed Democrats and took Congress, and a guy named Bush began his political rise by winning the governor's race. He's a former banker and a former mayor of Garland.

Gubernatorial hopefuls are suiting upAdd two names to the Kay Bailey Hutchison political squad: Chad Wilbanks, former political director for the Republican Party of Texas and a veteran of previous Hutchison campaigns, and Keats Norfleet, who most recently helped Louis Gohmert, R-Tyler, unseat U.S. Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Marshall, in Congress, and who worked for Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, in the state Legislature. The two have signed on a political operativess for the senior U.S. senator from Texas (Wilbanks as a consultant, and Norfleet as a staffer). Hutchison is flirting with a run for governor next year against Rick Perry, the incumbent fellow Republican now in that spot, while also keeping open the option of running for reelection. Several of Wilbanks' former colleagues at the Texas GOP would be on the Perry side of the race, if such a thing comes to pass, including former chairwoman Susan Weddington, who heads a nonprofit started by Perry, Wayne Hamilton, former executive director of the Party, and Robert Black, flack for the GOP then and for Perry now. Weddington was one of several well-known conservatives who announced they'll support Perry's reelection for a term that would make him the state's first ten-year governor. The rest: Cathie Adams, Texas Eagle Forum; Jim Cardle, Texas Club for Growth; Bill Crocker, Republican National Committeeman for Texas; Becky Farrar, Concerned Women of America PAC; Kay Goolsby, Texans for Texas; James Graham and Elizabeth Graham, Texas Right to Life PAC; Tim Lambert, Texas Home School Coalition; Norm Mason and Jeanne Mason, Texas Christian Coalition; Allan Parker, Texas Justice Foundation; Joe Pojman, Texas Alliance for Life; Marisa Rummell, Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Texas; Kelly Shackelford, Free Market Foundation; Janelle Shepard, Texans for Texas; Peggy Venable; and Kyleen Wright, Texans for Life Coalition. The Perry gang is maneuvering for further signs of support. If they get the ducks lined up, they'll announce endorsements from other Republican statewide officials in the next few days; a list we're told could include almost all of the non-judicial elected honchos. Probably not on the list: U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who'd have more to lose than to gain by getting involved, and Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who is widely believed to be the third potential candidate in the governor's race. The Perry folks are also calling around to financial supporters, trying to compile a list of GOP heavies who'll say they're with Perry -- and not Hutchison or Strayhorn -- in the 2006 race for governor. Sidebar: Nobody has successfully knocked off a sitting governor in a primary since John Hill beat Dolph Briscoe in the Democratic primary in 1978. Hill went on to lose to Republican Bill Clements...

Catching up from our break...James LeBas quit his job as the state's chief revenue estimator to take over as chief financial officer of the Texas Water Development Board. That move isn't as unusual as the timing: Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, LeBas' former boss, is uncorking the biennial revenue estimate next week, and she'll do it with a new forecaster. The new guy, John Heleman, is a veteran revenue estimator who started at the agency in 1988 and has survived three comptrollers. While he and his staff are forecasting state income over the next two years, LeBas will be working on bond and finance programs. That biennial revenue forecast tells legislative budgeteers how much money they can spend in their next budget without running an unconstitutional deficit. In recent years, legislators have accused Strayhorn of cooking the numbers for political reasons, and you might be hearing more about that in a week's time, when the new BRE comes out... Dan Lambe decided to leave Texas Watch to take a job in his hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska, with the National Arbor Day Foundation. The new executive director here is Alex Winslow. Texas Watch is a consumer protection group that regularly lambastes insurance companies for high rates on home and auto policies... Janice Steffes is the new chief of staff for state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Abilene. She's been his legislative director for several years, and will replace Bill Scott, who had been the chief. Scott is leaving the Pink Building to become manager of public affairs in the Austin offices of Exelon, a Chicago-based electric utility with regulatory interests here. Bill Bragg, who worked for Rep. Jack Stick in the House and has done campaign work for Supreme Court Justice Scott Brister and others, is also joining Fraser's staff... Susan Steeg, until recently the general counsel for the Texas Department of Health, is the new executive director of the Public Health Law Association, a relatively new group for people in that specialized area of law. She'll remain in Austin... Damaris Barton, daughter of Texas GOP Vice Chairman David Barton, will be that party's new director of community partnerships. That announcement described her as a "grassroots outreach specialist"... Deaths: Mack Kidd, a judge on the state's 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin and a former president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association. He was 63... Roy Evans, former president of the Texas AFL-CIO. He was 79... Bill Stump of Georgetown, who served in the Texas Legislature back when Harry Truman was President of these United States. He was 93...