Every time a legislative session ends, Mark Dallas Loeffler pulls out his movie posters, grabs some themes from the session, steals some photographs, and goes to work.

Here's one of this year's posters, and you can see the entire set (and the posters for five previous session) at his website.

Federal races firm up, some stats on legislation, and a survey...

• San Antonio trial lawyer Mikal Watts is readying exploratory papers for the U.S. Senate race in 2008. Watts, a Democrat, has been maneuvering to get other Democrats out of the way so he can spend his time challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a San Antonio Republican.

• U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, won't run for the U.S. Senate, choosing instead to seek reelection to his CD-22 seat. He'll almost certainly get an opponent in that heavily Republican district (this is the one that used to belong to Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land), but it won't be Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace. Wallace said in a statement that he'll devote his time to his new company, Wallace Bajjali Development Partners. He had announced earlier that he wouldn't seek a fourth term as mayor.

• The number of bills filed in this legislative session was up, as was the number passed, as was the number not passed. Telicon, the outfit we use to track legislation and other information, put out an unofficial recap. By their count, 4,140 House bills were filed, up 15 percent from two years ago. Senate filings, at 2,058, were up 9 percent. If you're a "less government" person or a "not that kind of government" person, you'll like this stat: 77 percent of House bills and 75 percent of Senate bills didn't make it, at least in bill form. It was even worse for constitutional amendments: The House killed 91 percent of the changes proposed; the Senate killed 90 percent.

• Capitol Crowd, a networking site for government and political folk, is polling folks to see who their favorites and least favorites are among the Pink Building's denizens: Staffers, lobbyists, lawmakers, and the like. They're also asking people to make guesses at who'll be on Texas Monthly's 10 Best and 10 Worst lists. We'll report the results when they're in.

Michael Behrens, the executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, will resign at the end of August. He's been the top guy at that agency for six years and has worked there for almost four decades.

Jay Kimbrough, who was dispatched to investigate the Texas Youth Commission during the legislative session, will become deputy chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. He's currently the system's deputy general counsel.

James Bernsen, who's been flakking for the House's Republican Caucus, is going off to a real war. The Naval Reservist will be deployed to Baghdad this summer and says he'll be in training for three months and then in Iraq for 12 months. He'll blog from there, if the brass allows it.

Former Texas Supreme Court Justice William Wayne Kilgarlin made "a major planned gift commitment" to endow conservation and preservation teaching at the University of Texas School of Information. He'd already made a $1 million donation to start the William and Margaret Kilgarlin Center for Preservation of the Cultural Record.

Bob Kahn will be the new CEO at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), replacing Sam Jones, who's retiring. Kahn is the deputy general manager at Austin Energy and is a former ERCOT board member.

Appointments: Gov. Rick Perry reappointed Thomas Leeper of Huntsville and Jo Van Hovel of Temple to the board of the Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation. Leeper is an attorney; Van Hovel is retired from the real estate business.

The governor named two new members to the Texas Medical Board and reappointed four members. Dr. Michael Arambula of San Antonio, Patricia Blackwell of Midland, Dr. Margaret McNeese of Houston, and Dr. Charles Oswalt III of Waco will get new terms. The new folks are Dr. Melinda McMichael, who practices at university health services at UT Austin; and Timothy Webb, a Houston attorney. 

Kenneth Perkins, a Conroe chiropractor, is Perry's choice to head the Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners.