Answer: Scott Brister, Paul Green, Harriet O'Neill and Dale Wainwright. Question: Which Texas Supreme Court justices, along among that nine-member robed gang, won't be on the election ballot in 2006?A majority of the justices will face voters next year. Justice Priscilla Owen's confirmation to the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans opens the ninth spot on the Texas court, but not another spot on the ballot -- her term was up next year anyhow. And it's a lifetime appointment: She might be appointed to a higher court someday, but she won't have to run for election to keep her robes. After her confirmation vote by the U.S. Senate, Owen issued a statement saying she'll remain on the Texas court until current business is out of the way; she's got to finish writing any opinions she is writing, and the court might or might not have other cases to finish in which she's part of a narrow majority. Gov. Rick Perry will get to appoint her successor, who in turn will have to run in next year's elections to hold their spot on the state's highest civil court. Whoever that is will be the sixth member of the court to start there as a Perry appointee. That gives Perry an opportunity to put another judge on the panel before the appeal of the school finance lawsuit is decided (and maybe, if everything happens quickly, before it's argued in the first week of July). The court doesn't have to rule before the March primaries, or for that matter, the November general election next year, but could rule on the constitutionality of the state's public school finance system as early as this fall. And a new judge doesn't have to be on the court when the arguments are held to be involved in the decision; a judge named after the hearing still gets to vote on that decision. The trial court ordered the state to fix the system by October; the Supremes can move that date whether they rule before then or not.

Secretary of State Roger Williams will chair the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Response Strike Force, set up to respond to the U.S. Defense Department's plan to close or "realign" ten military facilities in Texas. Gov. Rick Perry created the task force and also appointed Williams to run it. Former Texas Insurance Commissioner Jose Montemayor will be managing partner of an Austin-based merchant bank that specializes in investments in the insurance industry. He'll start next month at Black Diamond Group LLC. The governor hasn't named Montemayor's replacement at TDI; if he does that after the Legislature adjourns, the appointee won't have to get Senate confirmation until the next time lawmakers convene. The Guv put these six people on the Texas Historical Commission: Sarita Armstrong Hixon of Houston, chairman of the San Jacinto Museum of History Association; Diane Bumpas of Dallas, a reappointee; Earl Broussard Jr. of Austin, president of TB6 Planners; Donna Carter, president of a design business in Austin; Tom Phillips of Bastrop, former chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court; and Marcus Watson of Dallas, the "heritage preservation officer" for the City of Plano. Perry reappointed Chris LaPlante of Austin and Maria Pfeiffer of San Antonio to the Texas Historical Records Advisory Board. LaPlante is the state archivist (at the Texas State Library and Archivists Commission; Pfeiffer is a preservation consultant and historian. Kate Linkous, assistant press secretary to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, will leave for Washington, D.C., when the session is over -- she'll be the new speechwriter for U.S. Senate Majority Bill Frist, R-Tennessee. Sarah McLallen, described by co-workers as some sort of whiz-bang political-op-in-the-making, is leaving the Texas Republican Party to go to college. She worked in the GOP's communications office under the last three spokespeople there. Danielle Allen, who worked for former U.S. Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Marshall, is joining the Austin office of Edelman public relations. She'll be working mainly for Lone Star Infrastructure, the developer of State Highway 130. Dick Davis, regional director of the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation and for years a conservation journalist (broadcast and print), is the new executive director of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation. That's a private foundation, but it's a satellite of the state's Parks & Wildlife Department and raises private money to support the state agency's work. Recovering: Andy Sansom, former executive director of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, after an automobile accident that left him with a badly broken leg and other painful but not -life-threatening injuries.