Perry taps Jones for RailroadCharles Matthews hasn't bowed out, but his replacement has been named. Gov. Rick Perry started the first day of the session by say he intends to appoint Rep. Elizabeth Ames Jones, R-San Antonio, to Matthews' spot on the Texas Railroad Commission. As we noted last week, she can't take the appointment if she takes her oath of office for another legislative term. With lawmakers set to start swearing at noon, Perry's announcement frees her to do something else on the first day. Matthews is leaving elected office to be chancellor of the Texas State University System.

Texas Insurance Commissioner José Montemayor won't seek another two-year appointment when his term ends in May.Gov. Rick Perry will name a replacement, but early indications are that he won't do that until late spring. Put Deputy Insurance Commissioner Mike Geeslin's name into the hat and save it for later. Montemayor was the agency's number two man when Elton Bomer -- previously a legislator and Texas Secretary of State, now a lobbyist -- was the commissioner. He's been in the top spot for six years. During his tenure, the state tried to leash homeowners' and automobile insurance rates and to make medical malpractice insurance more available and affordable. Both efforts are still underway: home insurers were ordered to lower rates in 2003, giving back some of the increases they had put in place, and there are some early signs that more companies are offering medical malpractice insurance in Texas. Montemayor, a CPA, retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1993 (as a major) before joining TDI. He's originally from Brownsville. In his resignation letter, Montemayor said he'll stay around until Perry names a new commissioner. He didn't say there what he plans to do next.

Gov. Rick Perry had the appointments machine on full throttle as the legislative session began.• Perry named Ernest Angelo Jr., a Midland oilman who was Republican when Republican wasn't cool, to the Texas Public Safety Commission, which oversees the Department of Public Safety. He'll replace one of his neighbors -- Bobby Holt -- on that three-member board. • He named seven people to the Aging and Disability Services Council, one of several panels set up in the merger of the state's health and human services agencies to develop rules and policies for that elephantine organization. Terry Wilkinson of Midland will chair the council; she's worked on programs for the elderly there and is a former board member of the old Texas Department of Human Services. She'll be joined by Abigail Barrera of San Antonio, a doctor; Sharon Butterworth of El Paso, who was on the board of the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation; Jean Freeman of Galveston, who teaches public health courses at the University of Texas Medical Branch; Fran Brown of Carrollton, a former city council member and member of the former state Board on Aging who works at Lake Village Nursing Home; Thomas Oliver of Baytown, a CPA who chaired the Department of Aging's board; and David Young of Grand Prairie, an exec with Adapt of America, Inc. • Another of those new HHS panels, the State Health Services Council, gets seven members: Rudy Arredondo, a prof at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in Lubbock and the former chair of the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, will be presiding officer; Jim Springfield, president of Valley Baptist Health System in Harlingen and a Texas Hospital Association board member; Dr. Jaime Davidson of Dallas, president of Endocrine and Diabetes Associates of Texas; Dr. Jeffery Ross of Bellaire, director of the Medical Center for Foot Specialists and an assistant prof at Baylor College of Medicine; Beverly Barron, a former member of the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse who's been active in drug prevention; Dr. Lewis Foxhall of Houston, a health policy exec and professor at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center; and Glenda Kane of Corpus Christi, a former board member at MHMR. • Betty Pinckard Reinbeck got a weeks-long appointment to the Texas Building and Procurement Commission -- the agency that operates the state's property and real estate. When the term she's filling is complete at the end of this month, Perry intends to appoint her to a full six-year term. She's the executive director of the Tomball Economic Development Corp. • Taylor County Commissioner Stanley Egger of Tuscola will be the newest member of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. That's another less-than-a-month gig to be followed by six years in a full term. • Perry reappointed John Ovard of Dallas as presiding judge of the First Administrative Judicial Region. • The Guv appointed Barbara Sheffield of Sugar Land to the Texas Credit Union Commission. She's the CEO at the Members Choice Credit Union and a trustee of the Texas Credit Union Foundation. • The One-Call Board -- a panel that makes sure utility and pipelines get marked before crews start digging -- gets three re-appointees and one new guy: Joseph Berry of Pearland, with Centerpoint Energy; Judith Devenport, who works for Merrill Lynch in Midland; and Janet Holland, who runs a hardward store in Mineral Wells, will remain on the board. John Linton of Lubbock, who works for Cox Communications (the cable wing of the company), is new on the board. • Perry named Audrey McDonald of Georgetown to the State Committee of Examiners in the Fitting and Dispensing of Hearing Instruments, which licenses hearing aids. • The state's Product Development and Small Business Incubator Board, part of the government's economic development apparatus, is getting nine new members: Jose Amador, director of the Texas A&M University System Agricultural Research and Extension Center at Weslaco; Michael Davis Jr. of Austin, a partner at the Haynes and Boone law firm; Richard Ewing, vice president of research at Texas A&M University in College Station and a professor there; Daniel Hanson of Dallas is the co-founder and principal of Technology Innovation Group; Neil Iscoe, director of the Office of Technology Commercialization at the University of Texas at Austin and an adjunct prof there; Dr. Mae Jemison of Houston, president and founder of BioSentient Corporation and The Jemison Group, Inc. and a former astronaut; David Margrave of San Antonio, an exec with BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Paul Maxwell, vice president for research and sponsored projects at the University of Texas at El Paso; and Harvey Rosenblum director of research of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. • Sada Cumber, chairman of SozoTek of Austin, and Jane Juett, president of Kitchen Gallery in Amarillo, are the newest members of the Texas Economic Development Corporation, another piece of the government's eco devo machine. • The Guv put three people on the Texas Small Business Industrial Development Corporation, which makes low cost loans to public entities: Nathaniel "Tan" Parker IV of Flower Mound, an exec with Computer Sciences Corporation, will chair the panel; A. Mario Castillo of San Angelo, president of the Aegis Group, Ltd., and principal of Pump Service and Supply Company; and Nancy Kudla of San Antonio, chairman and CEO of RDI Systems, Inc., and president of Core 6 Solutions, LLC. • Perry named Randall County Justice of the Peace Jerry Bigham of Canyon to the Texas County and District Retirement System.

Fisher, Dowd, Pollock, Davidson, Laine, Chick, Newton, and FortnerRichard Fisher, the Dallas financier who entered the public spotlight in 1994 for a kamikaze run for the U.S. Senate against Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison (he got just 38.3 percent of the votes), has been appointed to head the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Fisher, who was a deputy U.S. trade representative during the second Clinton Administration, will replace Robert McTeer, who left the school to become chancellor of the Texas A&M University System... Matthew Dowd came back to Austin right after helping get George W. Bush elected to a second term as president of these United States -- really, he was back for good by Thanksgiving. Now he's settled back in, and the polling and policy wonk has opened his own public affairs shop in Austin... Alan Pollock is the new chief in the Austin office of MGT of America, a Florida-based firm that does consulting work for government and government-related entities. He left the comptroller's office in 1996 to join that firm. Pollock will replace Jeffrey Ling, who moved to the mother ship in Florida. Donna García Davidson is the new general counsel to the Republican Party of Texas. She's a lawyer with Potts & Reilly in Austin, a former general counsel to Gov. Rick Perry and an assistant general counsel when George W. Bush was governor. She also worked for Perry when he was a mere Agriculture Commissioner. Rene Diaz had the GOP job until Perry made him a district court judge in San Antonio a few weeks ago... Dale Laine, who recently left Public Strategies to start his own consulting firm, signed on as president and COO of the Texas Cable & Telecommunications Association. He'll do that and keep the consulting thing, too. Laine is a reformed campaign worker whose former bosses include then-Gov. George W. Bush, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and former Sen. Phil Gramm... The Texas Association of Realtors added Craig Chick to the in-house lobby team. He was a legislative aide to Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, and to Rep. Fred Bosse, D-Houston, and has also worked on several campaigns... Will Newton takes over as Texas state director for the National Federation of Independent Business. NFIB also picked up lobster Lance Lively to help out during the legislative session. Newton had been the legislative liaison for Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn; she's replaced him with Monty Wynn, a former comptroller employee who worked in the Senate last session... Patrick Fortner is leaving the comptroller's office, where he's been part of the press shop through some thick and some thin, for the Texas Residential Construction Commission. He'll be the external communications guy there...

Eric Opiela, a Republican from Karnes City, dropped his challenge, citing unspecified pressures from within and without his own camp.He lost the election to Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles, D-Alice. The decision in that race was clear, but Opiela questioned the legality of the voting in Jim Wells and Bee counties, and his inquiry triggered a grand jury inquiry and visits from investigators for Attorney General Greg Abbott. That criminal investigation is apparently still under way. He said afterwards that he thought the case was winnable, but that he didn't want to go through the lawsuits and other obstacles a win would require. Others have noted the institutional bias in the Legislature against challenges; despite the rhetoric you hear around these things, politicians get nervous about the appearance of overruling voters. Opiela would like to run for public office in the future, but said "until we solve the problems [in those two counties], there is no point in running for this seat." His attorney, Hector DeLeon of Austin, said a successful challenge would have likely resulted in another election, held in the same places where there were alleged problems in November. He said they'll hand their stuff over to investigators if asked, but said he and Opiela aren't involved in any criminal investigation.