Have you heard the one about Carole Keeton Strayhorn considering a run for mayor of Austin?She says, sort of, that it ain't so. Or that it could be. Actually, we didn't get a Yes or No answer. Strayhorn is a former state comptroller, Railroad Commissioner, Insurance Commissioner, mayor, school board president and congressional and gubernatorial candidate. She admits she still watches the City Council on public access TV from time to time, but says she hasn't given any thought to running for mayor. But she gets asked, in emails from friends and supporters, and has conjured a standard response: "When I became mayor 32 years ago, I was the first woman mayor in Austin and the youngest woman mayor [of a major city] in the United States. If I won it back, I would be the second woman mayor of Austin, and the oldest woman mayor in the U.S. I haven't looked up the age thing, but I don't think anyone would want to fight about it." Strayhorn is busy raising money and support for her new Our Texas Grandchildren foundation, a non-profit geared to help foster children in the state. She and two others — Jim Stinson of Houston and Joyce Covington of Brenham — are the only directors so far. She's also signed up two state senators for what will be a larger "statewide leadership advisory council" — John Carona, R-Dallas, and Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. That charity is her answer when people ask what she's up to. "This is my pro bono ad infinitum," she says.

Rick Noriega starts his general election run with a new campaign manager and a new fundraiser.Mark Bell, a top staffer to former House Speaker Pete Laney, will run the campaign. Bell says the campaign will bring fundraising in-house, with former Ann Richards staffer Jennifer Treat handling those duties. Treat lives in Washington, D.C. and will work from there. Bell replaces former state Rep. Sue Schechter, who'll still have a "major part" in Noriega's challenge to Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

Rick Noriega starts his general election run with a new campaign manager and a new fundraiser. Mark Bell, a top staffer to former House Speaker Pete Laney, will run the campaign. Bell says the campaign will bring fundraising in-house, with former Ann Richards staffer Jennifer Treat handling those duties. Treat lives in Washington, D.C. and will work from there. Bell, who ran Laney's campaigns and was involved in a mess of races with the Texas Partnership while Laney was Speaker, replaces former state Rep. Sue Schechter, who'll still have a "major part" in Noriega's challenge to Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

Gov. Rick Perry appointed federal prosecutor Kenneth Magidson to fill in as interim Harris County District Attorney. Chuck Rosenthal resigned from that post and won't be replaced until the elections produce a successor. Magidson's an assistant U.S. Attorney and a one-time assistant DA in Harris County.

Perry named Stuart Messer of Memphis to the 100th District Court, replacing Judge David McCoy. Messer was district attorney for the five-county district that's also covered by that court.

Perry put Carl Settles in charge of the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists and named four new members to that panel: Timothy Branaman, a Dallas psychologist and associate professor at Argosy University; Jo Ann Campbell, a psychologist with the Abilene ISD; Angela Downs, an Irving attorney and program manager with Mothers Against Drunk Driving; and Lou Ann Mock, a school psychologist and an associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine.

The Guv named Conrado de la Garza, president and owner of Bahnman Realty of Harlingen, to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. And he named Keely Appleton of Fort Worth and Richard Battle of Lakeway to the Texas Judicial Council. Appleton is a board member at Cook Children's Hospital; Battle is vice president of KeyTrak.

Edward Foster Jr. of Hurst joins the Texas Skill Standards Board. Perry found him in the Mansfield ISD, where he's director of career and technical education.

House Speaker Tom Craddick named Dr. Joseph Bailes of The Woodlands, Dee Kelly of Fort Worth, and Cindy Brinker Simmons of Dallas to the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute Oversight Committee, which will oversee the $3 billion in cancer bonds approved by voters last year. Bailes is an oncologist. Kelly's a Fort Worth lawyer and political player. And Simmons is a writer and the president of Levenson & Brinker Public Relations.

Ann Erben returns to state employment, this time at the Texas Workforce Commission as executive assistant to Tom Pauken, the newly named chairman of TWC.

Energy Future Holdings — you know it as the former TXU Corp. — formed a "sustainable energy advisory board" that'll be chaired by former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Reilly. He's a member of the EFH board and the chairman emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund. The panel will include Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson; Sam Jones, the former president and CEO of ERCOT; Karen Johnson, president and CEO of United Ways of Texas and former president of Entergy; Jim Marston, regional director of Environmental Defense; Ralph Cavanagh with the Natural Resources Defense Council; Reginald Gates, president and COO of the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce; and Steven Specker, president and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute.

Going, Going... University of Texas System Chancellor Mark Yudof is the University of California System's top choice for chancellor. He's been at UT since 2002, and before that, headed the University of Minnesota System (and before that, was provost and law school dean at UT Austin). The head of the California search committee didn't name a specific salary figure, but in a statement, said this of Yudof: "He is expensive." The deal isn't yet final.

Gone... Austin American-Statesman Editor Rich Oppel Sr., after 13 years at the helm. He'll be replaced by the paper's managing editor, Fred Zipp.

Former Rep. Toby Goodman, R-Arlington, was fined $10,000 by the Texas Ethics Commission for using campaign funds to pay rent to his wife for a house in Cedar Hill, where the couple stayed while Goodman was doing legislative work in Austin.

That's allowed if the officeholder doesn't own the property, if the rent is at market rates, and if there's no benefit to the officeholder. But in Goodman's case, the commission said the rent was higher than market. And while Goodman's wife was the sole owner of the house, he and she were both on the mortgage. Because of that, he was a beneficiary of the payments. And because the rent was higher than other houses nearby, "there is credible evidence that the payments constituted a conversion of political contributions to personal use."

When this came up during the 2006 election cycle, Goodman said he was relying on a TEC advisory opinion answering questions from Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth. The agency said it's legal to rent from a spouse if the officeholder has no interest in the property and doesn't stand to benefit. Several lawmakers, including Brimer, had such arrangements at the time.