Madla's resignation creates opportunities for West and Zaffirini

He gets a free do-over at the beginning of the next legislative session, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst scooted some chairs around to fill behind Sen. Frank Madla, D-San Antonio. Madla resigned after losing the Democratic primary, leaving the Intergovernmental Relations Committee without a chairman.

Dewhurst named Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, to chair the committee. In West's place as chairman of the Senate's Subcommittee on Higher Education, he named Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo. West will remain the vice chairman of the Senate's Education Committee; Zaffirini will keep the vice chair gig on the Senate Finance Committee.

Austin Senate candidate Kirk Watson has a temporary blog in the hometown paper, where he's writing regularly about a trip through the former Soviet Union. He doesn't have a Republican opponent in November; Libertarian Rock Howard is on the ballot. The Austin American-Statesman calls the blog "From Russia, with Kirk." And to be fair, they've got a deal that allows readers to set up their own blogs; it's not an endorsement deal.

The latest Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll has Carole Keeton Strayhorn running fourth in a four-way poll on the Texas governor's race, with only 9.6 percent of the vote. Gov. Rick Perry's still in the lead in that survey, but he's dropped to 34.8 percent; if the contest actually ran this way, Texas would get a governor with the support of just more than one-third of the voters. Democrat Chris Bell is in second, at 23.1 percent, followed by independent Kinky Friedman at 22.7 percent. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percentage points. Their write-up of the race says "Perry faces stiff competition for reelection," and makes his narrowing lead the headline. The same poll has U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison leading Democrat Barbara Ann Radnofsky by 17 points. The Republican has 54.6 percent of those surveyed on her side; the challenger has 37.3 percent. That's three points wider than a month ago; the pollsters have labeled the race a "safe bet" for Hutchison. Among Republican incumbents across the country, Zogby says she's the only one leading her opponent by more than the polls' margins of error. The polling in both contests was done August 15-21 by Zogby Interactive.

Political People and Their Moves

Robert McTeer, chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, will retire by the end of the year. The former head of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, McTeer took the A&M job almost two years ago. The board of regents will meet in a few weeks to talk about what's next.

Patricia Hayes is moving from the Texas Education Agency to the Texas State University System, where she'll be vice chancellor for governmental relations and educational policy. At TEA, she was running the P-16 program that coordinates public schools with higher education, running kids smoothly from preschool — the P — through the fourth year of college — the 16th year of a standard education.

Texas Insurance Commissioner Mike Geeslin picked Jennifer Ahrens as that agency's "health care provider ombudsman." She's currently an associate commissioner at TDI. She'll replace Audrey Selden, senior associate commissioner of the consumer protection division there.

Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, signed on with the Austin law firm of Azarmehr & Associates, which does immigration law. They've also got offices in New York City and Monterrey.

Rene Lara is leaving the Texas Federation of Teachers for colder climes: He's on his way to a similar job with Education Minnesota, an outfit formed when two large teacher groups in that state merged, including the one affiliated with the AFL-CIO. TFT hasn't hired a replacement yet.

Dan Finch, who has been the public affairs director at the Harris County Medical Society, joins the government affairs shop at the Texas Medical Association. He's the replacement for Yvonne Barton, who's now at Abbott Laboratories.

Press corps moves: The forthcoming shrinkage of The Dallas Morning News will take out a veteran state reporter. Austin Bureau reporter Pete Slover says he's taking the paper's buyout and is looking at options. He's still got an active State Bar card, and might do some lawyering after 20 years of newspapering. The News has said it wants 85 of about 500 news positions emptied by the buyout by September 15. It doesn't appear that other reporters in the paper's Austin bureau will be affected.

Kristi Willis, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, plead guilty to stealing $168,000 from his campaign and was ordered to pay him back and spend 30 days in jail. She's already paid back money taken from former Texas House candidate Andy Brown and the Capitol Area Democratic Woman, as well as some of what she took from Doggett. If she does that, some community service, and four years of probation, the court agreed to remove the conviction from her record.

Deaths: Former state Rep. Jack Vowell, R-El Paso, after a long illness. Vowell was for a long time the Legislature's leading voice on health and human service issues. He attained a rare level of trust with his colleagues: He could (and regularly did) carry the vote on health and human service legislation just by telling his fellow House members that he'd looked it over and all was well. Vowell, who left office in 1994, was 79.

The open spot on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is going to Martin Hubert — deputy commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture. By picking Hubert, Gov. Rick Perry knocked back two bits of speculation: One, on who might get the appointment at TCEQ, and two, on who might follow Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs if she wins the comptroller's job in November. Hubert's a lawyer from a South Texas ranching and farming family. Among other things, he was general counsel for a time to then-Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock.  He's the latest in a line of top ag department people who went from there to TCEQ that includes, among others, Barry McBee and Geoff Connor, both of whom moved into bigger and better jobs when they left the environmental agency.

For the small group of people who follow this stuff — agency types, tax wonks, lawyers, lobbyists, political consultants and lawmakers — Hubert's been touted as a potential top assistant to the state's tax collector. The appointment doesn't make a job with the next comptroller impossible (assuming Combs wins), but it takes him out of the mix for now. He's appointed to a term that runs through 2011, which means he could stay that long; it doesn't mean he has to stay that long. Lisa Woods, who's been working on the Combs campaign, will take over some of the pre-transition work Hubert had been working on.

Hubert goes to TCEQ at an interesting moment. The three-member commission is due to decide the fate of a new coal plant in East Texas that Dallas-based TXU wants to build. Administrative law judges at the State Office of Administrative Hearings have recommended against allowing the plants, but the final decision is up to the three commissioners. With Hubert on board, there's no chance of a tie vote.

• Perry appointed Carin Marcy Barth of Houston to the Texas Public Finance Authority. She's the president of LB Capital.

• He named three new members to the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, including Rosemary Combs of El Paso, Alice Mendoza of Kingsville, and Jeanne Waggener of Waco. Combs, who is being reappointed, is former executive director of the El Paso Center on Family Violence. Mendoza and Waggener are pharmacists. Mendoza is director of pharmacy at CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital in Kleberg; Waggener is assistant manager of the Wal-Mart pharmacy in Bellmead.