Get used to that headline — we're keeping it until the race for speaker is over.

Texas votes put 74 Democrats, 75 Republicans, and one Question Mark into the Texas House, setting off simultaneous scrambles for the seat in Irving and the corner office occupied by the chamber's presiding officer.

If anyone in the House had the 76 votes needed to become the next speaker on January 13, we'd be reporting on what was said at the press conference announcing their victory.

No press conferences yet, gang.

Democratic victories on Tuesday cut into Speaker Tom Craddick's hold on the job — a grip already weakened by challenges from would-be speakers and by his assertive reading of the House's own rules.

He doesn't have the votes.

And his opponents, led by the House Democratic Caucus, are asking colleagues to pledge in writing that they won't vote for him again. That Non-Speaker election could open the field for the regular Speaker election in January, just by turning the Craddick incumbency into an open seat.

They don't have the votes.

Several candidates for speaker on both sides of the aisle are ready to go — some filed, some not.

They don't have the votes.

And until the outcome in the Irving seat now held by Republican Rep. Linda Harper-Brown is known — she won by 29 votes and the lawyers on both sides are warring over provisional ballots and such — it's not clear whether the next speaker will be a Democrat or a Republican.

If Harper-Brown prevails, take the Democratic candidates out of the running (unless something seriously weird happens). Here's that list: Craig Eiland of Galveston, Pete Gallego of Alpine, Scott Hochberg of Houston, Richard Raymond of Laredo, Allan Ritter of Nederland, Senfronia Thompson of Houston, and Sylvester Turner of Houston.

If she loses, Craddick's chances plummet, and the list of replacements includes all of those Democrats, unnamed Republicans freed from their pledges to Craddick, and the Republicans whose names are already out there. The knowns: Byron Cook of Corsicana, Dan Gattis of Georgetown, Delwin Jones of Lubbock, Jim Keffer of Eastland, Edmund Kuempel of Seguin, Tommy Merritt of Longview, Jim Pitts of Waxahachie, and Burt Solomons of Carrollton.

Candidates for speaker have to file with the Texas Ethics Commission, which is now keeping a list. At our last check, these are the names of legal speaker candidates: Republicans Craddick, Jones, Keffer, Merritt, and Democrats Gallego, Hochberg, Ritter, Thompson, and Turner.

Common Cause

The Democrats in the Texas House don't agree a candidate for speaker and their leaders quickly realized that they weren't going to get everybody on board with that question. So they're asking a different question.

They split their query into parts, and part one, now in play, is "Do you want Republican Tom Craddick of Midland to have a fourth term as Speaker of the House?"

The answer to that — a strong "No" — appears to be the basis for the Democratic unity of the moment. They can always start another pillow fight if they get the chance to pick a replacement.

The mice have to bell the cat, asking members to sign a document saying they won't vote for Craddick under any circumstances. At a caucus meeting on the day after the elections, the Democrats got 60 representatives, give or take a few, to sign. That's supposedly risen to 63 names. They've asked Republicans who want to succeed Craddick to get signatures, too, and one of those tells us they've got 71 signatures, including the Democrats. Craddick's not talking, but a spokeswoman says her boss will repeat if Republicans are in the majority. And a former chief of staff to Craddick said in an email circulating among lobbyists that he's got 81 votes. If you're adding as you go, that's 152 votes in a 150-member House. If the schoolyard taunt is correct, someone's pants are burning.

If the Not Craddick gang comes up with at least 76 (and if all of those members feel bound by their own signatures), Craddick would be out of the running. That would free his remaining supporters to vote for someone else. It would free, in particular, the small group of Democrats who've supported Craddick in the face of increasing pressure from their colleagues, the so-called Craddick Ds. And it would free whatever Republicans have been looking for a change but who haven't felt politically safe saying so out loud.

It would also free other candidates for speaker, like Gattis and Solomons, who have been Craddick supporters in the past but would each like to occupy that corner office. There have always been Republicans in the House who aren't in the Craddick tent — the Gattis break could be a sign that some of his faithful supporters are breaking away.

Red Top, Blue Bottom

It wasn't a good Election Night for Republicans nationally, or in the Legislature, but the top of the Texas ballot is still bright red. The John McCain/Sarah Palin ticket got 55 percent of the vote, to 44 percent for Barack Obama/Joe Biden. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn did almost as well, snagging just under 55 percent to Democrat Rick Noriega's 44 percent.

Everyone in the congressional delegation — with the exception of Democrat Nick Lampson — won reelection to another two-year term. Republican Pete Olson got 52.5 percent and took back Tom DeLay's district for the GOP. John Culberson, R-Houston, easily survived a challenge from Michael Skelly, getting 56 percent. And Michael McCaul, D-Austin, managed an 11-point win over Democrat Larry Joe Doherty of Houston.

All of the statewide Republicans on the ballot were reelected, a crowd that includes Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams (52%), Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson (53%), Justices Dale Wainwright (51%) and Phil Johnson (52%), and Court of Criminal Appeals Judges Tom Price (52%), Paul Womack (53%), and Cathy Cochran, who got 82 percent against a Libertarian.

Brimer Falls

Wendy Davis finished just below 50 percent and beat 20-year legislator Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, after an expensive and nasty race that cost the two candidates more than $3 million.

That's the first Democratic gain in the Texas Senate in ten years, and it's an insurance vote for Democrats who want some control over Senate business; they'll have 12 seats now, enough to block legislation under a Senate rule that requires approval from two-thirds of the members to consider bills.

Democrat Chris Bell finished first in the special election to replace Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, but there's gonna be a runoff. In incomplete returns, Bell got 38 percent and Republican Joan Huffman got 26 percent, with four others splitting what was left. One strategy that worked: The last minute recruitment and heavy financial backing of Democrat Stephanie Simmons kept a Democratic turnout from electing Bell outright. She got almost 14 percent of the vote. Put another way, the two Democrats in the race got a total of 52.2 percent of the votes. A lone Democrat might have won it.

Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, easily held off Democrat Joe Jaworski, D-Galveston, after a noisy and expensive campaign. Jackson actually got a vote percentage comparable to or better than a couple of other senators who weren't generally thought to be in trouble, John Carona of Dallas and Chris Harris of Arlington. All of the state senators on the ballot this year, save Brimer, won reelection.

Jump Ball?

The numbers aren't final, and there's a challenge to be had in here, but it looks like the Texas House could convene in January with 75 Republicans and 75 Democrats sitting in those soft leather chairs.

Whether it comes to that or not, this is the third election in a row that the Democrats have taken turf from the Republicans in the Texas House. After redistricting changed the legislative maps, decisively, from blue to red, the Democrats have been chipping away at those Republican gains. In 2001, there were 72 Republicans in the Texas House. After the 2002 elections — the first after the redistricting maps took effect — they hit a high-water mark: 88 seats. The 2004 elections cut them to 87. In 2006, the GOP slipped to 81 seats. A party switch and a special election win trimmed that to 79. And the returns threaten the GOP's majority, depending on the outcome of a close race in Irving that's now in the hands of lawyers from both parties.

Flip these to the Republicans:

• Tim Kleinschmidt, R-Lexington, won Rep. Robby Cook's seat in the House, beating Democrat Donnie Dippel with 54 percent of the vote.

• Dr. Mark Shelton beat Rep. Dan Barrett in a Fort Worth rematch. Barrett never actually got to serve during a legislative session; he won a special election a year ago — Shelton was one of the people he beat — and then lost his bid for a full term. Shelton pulled 55 percent of the vote this time.

• Former Rep. Todd Hunter, a former Democrat running as a Republican, beat Rep. Juan Garcia III, in a Corpus Christi race. We know people on both sides of the party divide who thought that was in the bag for Garcia, including the folks at the 20/20 PAC, which was set up to protect a group of incumbent Democrats and sent out a fundraising letter two weeks ago boasting that the Garcia-Hunter race was over, in favor of the Democrat. Oops.

Flip these to the Democrats:

• Diana Maldonado defeated Republican Bryan Daniel in a Williamson County contest to replace Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock. She got 48.6 percent. That's a political canary in the coal mine for Republicans — that's the sort of Republican suburban county they've been counting on for their statewide wins for the last several election cycles. And it's a race where the frontrunners were kept below 50 percent by a Libertarian; Lillian Simmons got 4 percent.

• Chris Turner unseated Rep. Bill Zedler, R-Fort Worth, getting a little more than 51 percent of the vote. Zedler went on the target list two years ago when his reelection race — not really on anyone's political radar — was unexpectedly close. Democrats zeroed in on him this time and won.

• Rep. Tony Goolsby, R-Dallas, lost to Democrat Carol Kent by a convincing margin — she got 53 percent of the vote — in a district he's been battling to keep for three election cycles. He survived twice; three was too much.

• El Paso prosecutor Joe Moody overcame Republican Dee Margo — a candidate with serious money behind him in both the primary and the general elections — and is on his way to Austin with more than 51 percent of the vote. That seat had been held by Rep. Pat Haggerty, a Republican often allied with Democrats; Margo beat him in the primary.

• Kristi Thibaut won her rematch with Rep. Jim Murphy, R-Houston, garnering just over 50 percent of the vote. That was on some lists of hot races, including ours, but wasn't at the top. Both parties were pouring money into other contests and this one snuck up quietly.

• And attorney Robert Miklos, a Mesquite Democrat, outran former Mesquite Mayor Mike Anderson to win the seat that had been held by Rep. Thomas Latham, who lost to Anderson in March. Miklos got 50.6 percent.

That's six Democratic pickups to three Republican pickups, a net of three seats. The House currently has 79 Republicans (including two empty seats that had been held by Republicans) and 71 Democrats.

But look at this: In a race decided by just 29 votes, Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, beat Democrat Bob Romano. Tip your cap to James Baird, the Libertarian in HD-105 who kept both candidates from topping 50 percent. Count on a recount, with the highest stakes: This could be the seat that either puts the House in a 75-75 partisan tie or a 76-74 GOP advantage.

Republicans held these:

• After a hard-fought contest that was on the priority list for both parties, Republican Ken Legler got 51 percent vote total against Democrat Joel Redmond. That's a Republican seat in Pasadena, freed by Rep. Robert Talton's decision not to seek reelection.

• John Davis won again. He was on the Republican consultocracy's endangered list in March and won easily. And he won easily this time, pulling over 58 percent against Democrat Sherrie Matula.

• Ralph Sheffield survived a bloody primary and a bloody general election to win retiring Rep. Dianne White Delisi's seat, holding that spot for the GOP. He beat Democrat Sam Murphey, getting 54 percent of the vote.

Democrats held these:

• After redistricting, Democrats had to win in Republican-heavy districts to make gains in the Texas House. The corollary is that they are now defending themselves in Republican-heavy districts against a GOP that wants to get those seats back. This November's list of Democratic survivors includes Reps. Hubert Vo of Houston (56.3%), Allen Vaught of Dallas (50.5%), Kirk England of Grand Prairie (55.5%), Joe Heflin of Crosbyton (53.4%), Valinda Bolton of Austin (51.2%), Abel Herrero of Robstown (53.1%), Chuck Hopson of Jacksonville (49.3%, or 102 votes), and Mark Homer of Paris (51.7%).

Party Mix

How the parties stack up (at the moment) in the Texas Legislature. For sanity's sake, these are the numbers as of the beginning of each legislative session, with the exception of the listing for "now," which reflects the election results. Two House seats and one Senate seat are currently empty and were most recently in Republican hands. And the House number could change if a couple of recounts alter the results.

Following the Money

Political spenders in Texas moved about as much money in the last ten days of the campaign as in all of October, spreading scads of cash in legislative races, particularly in the House, where the partisan balance and the speakership were at stake. The money went where the risk to the interests is greatest. We've backed into these numbers because of the way campaign finance reports work at the end of each election.

The last full reports from the campaigns were due eight days before the election, and reflect contributions and expenditures and loans through October 25. After that, campaigns and political committees are only required to report significant contributions.

It's simple enough to say who got money — that's how they report it. To get to the big givers, we took those reports and sorted by donors. The caveat: Some reports are still coming in and being put online by the Texas Ethics Commission. And although we've captured what we could, variations in names stump the computers. For instance, "Craddick, Tom", "Thomas Craddick", and "Tom Craddick" come up in different spots on the list (he gave $230,000 and the people who got his money reported his name all three ways). With that, here's a look at the mountains of late money.

The Other Party

William B. Strange is the first Libertarian, according to that party's officials, to get more than a million votes in a Texas election.

He ran for a spot on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and though Republican Cathy Cochran trounced him, he got 18 percent of the vote and ensured his party a place on the ballot two years from now. The actual number of votes: 1,041,499.

The Libertarians also claim "kingmaker" status in several legislative races where the combination of a Libertarian and a tight contest kept the winners under 50 percent of the vote. That includes Democrat Wendy Davis' upset of Sen. Kim Brimer in Fort Worth; the HD-11 race where Rep. Chuck Hopson, D-Jacksonville, won by just 102 votes; the HD-52 race, where Democrat Diana Maldonado of Round Rock won with 48.6 percent; and in the HD-105 race, where Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, beat* Democrat Bob Romano by less than three dozen votes. Their candidates shaved votes in other races, too, without bringing the winners under the 50 percent mark.

*That result is being contested, with batteries of lawyers from both parties working through recounts, counts of provisional votes, etc., etc., etc.

Random Election Notes

Barack Obama won in the biggest counties in Texas, but he was losing the state — and by a substantial margin — to John McCain.

He got his biggest raw-vote margins (in order) in Travis, Dallas, El Paso, Hidalgo, Bexar, Cameron, Webb, and Harris counties.

McCain wracked up his biggest margins in these counties: Montgomery, Collin, Tarrant, Denton, Lubbock, Smith, Brazoria, Midland, and Parker.

Obama won by more than 10,000 votes in eight counties. McCain won by more than 10,000 votes in 39 counties. The Republican took home a win in 226 of the state's 254 counties, the Democrat, the other 28. Obama's wins included nine of the state's 25 biggest pools of registered voters; McCain took the rest of that group.

• The state's top vote-getters this year? John McCain/Sarah Palin, with 4.47 million. Texas Supreme Court Justice Dale Wainwright had the lowest number of votes among the statewide winners, with 3.92 million.

• Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, easily won reelection, with an asterisk: She didn't lose any of the 17 counties in her Senate district. That's a first.

• The GOP still holds the 29 statewide posts in Texas, has a 20-12 advantage in the congressional delegation, a 19-12 advantage in the state Senate, and the slightest majority and a speakership, for now, in the Texas House. That last one is the only place where the majority party is seriously challenged right now.

• Republicans took back a couple of jobs they fumbled to Democrats in 2006. This time, the districts voted the way they were expected to vote last time had Republican candidates not given voters reason to switch.

In CD-22, Pete Olson got Tom DeLay's old seat away from Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson; Lampson won it away from Shelly Sekula Gibbs, who temporarily succeeded DeLay but didn't get on the ballot in time and had to rely on voters going to the polls and writing in her name.

And Republican Todd Hunter won the HD-32 race against Rep. Juan Garcia, D-Corpus Christi; Garcia won that seat away from Gene Seaman, who had homestead exemptions in both Corpus Christi and Austin — that's illegal — and who blamed his wife for creating the problem.

Without unblemished candidates on the ballot, both districts snapped back into the Republican column.

• Carole Keeton Strayhorn, rumored to be preparing a run for mayor of Austin, did some pre-election robo-calling to Austin voters, reminding them to vote. And helping them remember her name. The transcript: "This is Carole Keeton Strayhorn, calling about tomorrow's election. As Austin's mayor, I was Carole Keeton McClellan. As Texas Railroad Commissioner, Carole Keeton Rylander. As your Texas comptroller, Carole Keeton Strayhorn. My last name has changed a few times, but my commitment to voting and ensuring our freedom has never changed. If you have questions about how to vote, call me at 477-VOTE. That's 477-VOTE. This is one tough grandma, Carole Keeton Strayhorn. Please make sure you vote tomorrow. Thank you so much."

Callers got Strayhorn's recorded message giving out phone numbers for info on voting places and registration questions. And they were directed to a website. Guess whose mug is staring out at you when you get to TexasDemocracy.com?

Coy Pond

Mark no change here: Kay Bailey Hutchison isn't ready to say, and Bill White isn't ready to say.

They're both rumored to be candidates 2010 for statewide offices they don't currently hold — heck, they might even be running for the same office. But you wouldn't know it from listening to them talk with reporters.

Hutchison, the state's senior U.S. senator, has been looking at the governor's race for months. White, Houston's mayor, is usually the first name mentioned in conversations about which Texas Democrat might run for U.S. Senate or Governor next time around.

Gov. Rick Perry has said he'll seek another term, though he'll have served 10 years in the post by the end of his current term. And the Senate seat won't be open until Hutchison leaves. She's said publicly she won't seek reelection, and has told supporters privately that she could resign early to focus on the run for governor.

Both say the public is tired of politics now, and that they're not ready to announce anything. Hutchison says she's thinking about the race — that's not news — and that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has now been in office long enough that her departure from the Senate wouldn't leave the state without experienced help in Washington, D.C. The election results didn't do anything to change her thinking, she said. "You know I can't say it now even if I wanted to — I haven't filed a campaign treasurer and that's the state law... It should be clear that I'm looking at it."

White, who's also been mentioned as a potential Energy Secretary in Barack Obama's new administration, says he hasn't decided what he'll do next. He's not even hinting, ticking off a list of things he's interested in on the federal level and things he's interested in on a state level. He does say he likes managing things — a lean to the executive post in Austin.

Still Some Life in It

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst took office after a tough race against Democrat John Sharp in 2002, and the two are still snapping at each other.

Dewhurst told a crowd at a Center for Politics and Governance Conference that he's no fan of the state's new business margins tax, even though he presided over the Senate when it was passed. Sharp, working with Republican Gov. Rick Perry and a panel of business people, designed that tax.

At the University of Texas-sponsored conference, the Lite Guv said the tax creates a "structural hole" in the state budget because it spends (on property tax relief) less than it brings in. "I told John Sharp this," he said. "I said, 'Let's not going in that direction.' But nobody listened."

Sharp takes issue with that version, saying Dewhurst refused to meet with him until the end of the special session when the tax was enacted and says the Senate's presiding officer could have easily blocked the vote had he wanted to. "He never would meet with me" during the session, Sharp said. "And show me the speech where he told the senators he was against it."

As for the structural hole, that was noted in the comptroller's fiscal estimate of the tax package's impact. But that comptroller, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, was battling with other state officials on her way to an election fight against Perry, and her warning was discounted as political. Until she lost to Perry and the Legislature was back in session. By her estimate, the tax swap was $25.1 billion out of balance over its first five years. The cost of the property tax cuts in the package exceeded the new state tax revenues by that amount, she said.

Quotes of the Week

Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, quoted in the Midland Reporter-Telegram: "You don't have to be a big-city guy to be speaker. What you have to do is have the votes."

Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, on his bid for the House's highest office: "It's a sad dog who won't wag his own tail... I'll continue to be a speaker candidate as long as I have a shot at getting it."

Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, saying he's running for speaker, in part, because of the political circus in the House last session: "What was best for Texas took a back seat to what was best for one member. That member was [House Speaker] Tom Craddick."

Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, on the current Speaker: "You can stick a fork in Tom Craddick. It's over." Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio: "He means that literally."

Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, on the effort to unseat the speaker: "I think we're damn close."

Alexis DeLee, spokeswoman for Craddick: "The Republicans still have the majority. As long as they have a majority, he'll be the speaker."

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, on the new administration coming to Washington and the Democratic majority in Congress: "However long I'm there, I don't want to vote 'no' all the time."

Houston Mayor Bill White, talking about problems measuring high school dropout rates: "If Wal-Mart can tell where ten big-screen TVs are, anywhere on the planet, and FedEx can find your envelope, we can intervene with dropouts."

Rep. Joe Heflin, D-Crosbyton, quoted in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on negative recorded phone calls to voters in his district: "It only makes people mad and wanting to vote more for me. I just got a call from a guy who said, 'I didn't know you were such a rascal but I voted for you anyway.'"

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Texas Weekly: Volume 25, Issue 43, 10 November 2008. Ross Ramsey, Editor. Copyright 2008 by Printing Production Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher is prohibited. One-year online subscription: $250. For information about your subscription, call (512) 302-5703 or email biz@texasweekly.com. For news, email ramsey@texasweekly.com, or call (512) 288-6598.

The election's over, but the latest battle for the House Speakership is just heating up in the blogosphere as in real life. Bloggers are also talking about the folks who won on November 4, and the ones who didn't. There are even some nonpartisan looks at voting results.

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Eakersp-ay Hearsay

Setting the scene for the conflict, the Dallas Morning News's Trail Blazers posts a video by the Associated Press's Jay Root about House Speaker Tom Craddick's "stand" to maintain his position at the end of the 2007 Lege session.

"Presently, prevailing wisdom here at the capitol is that if Republicans retained control of the House even by one seat, Craddick would win a fourth two-year term as speaker," says Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg, in his A Capitol Blog. But Postcards from the Lege, the Austin American-Statesman's blog, writes why Craddick might be better off with a 75-75 tie than with a one-Republican majority.

By Capitol Annex's count, there's a good chance Craddick has 77 votes. He handicaps some Speaker candidates here. According to Blue Dot Blues, "the buzz is deafening that Democrats will back Rep. Pete Gallego (Alpine) for speaker." And Eye on Williamson thinks Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, seems an "unlikely" Speaker choice "because of his relative youth."

Hoping that Texas House Democrats will stay united to dethrone Craddick, Burnt Orange Report swears off using the term "Craddick D" ever again. "The Ds didn't get enough done on Nov. 4th," muse says.

BurkaBlog says Craddick deserves credit for one of three seats the Republicans picked up, and deserves blame for the six they lost. He also outlines how the Democrats are making sure they'll lose again this time.

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Olive Wreaths

Pres. Barack Obama? Who woulda thunk it? Molly Ivins, apparently, says Texas Observer Blog, with photo evidence. Meanwhile, Trail Blazers was present for the Obama victory party at Grant Park in Chicago. And A Capitol Blog receives an invitation for the January inauguration in Washington, D.C.

KVUE's Political Junkie live-blogged from the Democrats' victory party in Austin at the Driskill Hotel here, here, here and here. Newsdesk, the Austin Chronicle's blog, was there, too. And so was In the Pink Texas.

Noting that every statewide Dem lost, Texas Cloverleaf expresses doubts about the efficacy of Obama's coattails in Texas. Obama performed worse than John Kerry in 100 Texas counties, says Annex. [eds. note: The New York Times has a neat map online that compares this election, by county, to any presidential race back to 1992. Click on Texas to enlarge it, and play away.]

"Democrat resurgence?" Not in Williamson County, says Williamson Republic, despite the victory of Democrat Diana Maldonado over Republican Bryan Daniel. Eye on Williamson has analysis. Meanwhile, A trainwreck in Maxwell is happy that Medina County went 100 percent Republican, "considering it is on the tan side." [eds. note: Medina County's population is 45.5 percent Hispanic and 2.2 percent African American, according to the Census Bureau.]

Steve Walker of Walker Report was elected Justice of the Peace in San Antonio, while Junkie talks to Trail Blazer Wayne Slater about Texans who could join Obama's administration.

Arguably the biggest winners on Election Day are the five folks who tied for the title of "Biggest Baddest Politically Savvy Mo-Fos in Texas," via Letters From Texas. And here's how the Trail Blazers fared with their presidential predictions.

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Sour Grapes

Policy Spotlight gives credit to Democratic leadership and reflects on the state of the Republican Party. The Travis Monitor has a 10-point strategy for victory, while Red Ink: Texas has six things the GOP needs to do in the next two years.

Before the election, PatriotWriter vowed that she'd move to "Alaska. Or at least Houston" in case of an Obama victory. (We'll see...) "Good job you liberal jerk-offs," says 123beta.

"It could have been much, much worse!" says Lone Star Times, who live-blogged the election for KHOU-TV. Follow this link for reader reactions to Obama's win. "Disappointed as I may be, I recognize the historical significance of this moment," says Texas Rainmaker, who was at the polls in Lake County, Indiana, on election night.

Judge for yourself if this post by Pondering Penguin comes off as a bit bitter. That's what the GOP gets for nominating a RINO who believes in global warming, among other things, says Texican Tattler.

UrbanGrounds live-blogs the election, then writes a congratulatory post to the Democrats that begins graciously and goes from there. Also kicking it at the Four Seasons for the Austin Republicans' election night party was yeah, right, whatever, who pledges not to "demonize" Obama the way Democrats did George W. Bush.

Rhymes with Right isn't happy that Obama's the President-Elect, but is proud of America anyway. Plowing, Sowing, and an Occasional Harvest finds solace in the Bible. And A Keyboard and a .45 wonders how Obama garnered the Hispanic vote.

Here's the complete text of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega's concession statement, from Texas on the Potomac, the Houston Chronicle's blog. PoliTex, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's blog, has a concession email from Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, who was ousted by Wendy Davis. And Texas Kaos has a concession post from Charles Randolph, who lost to Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford.

BeldarBlog prays for Obama to correct his flaws. North Texas Conservative has a very long post filled with after-election thoughts. Meanwhile, Big White Hat finds victory in defeat. And Discerning Texan wins Headline of the Week award for an entry on post-election blogging plans for conservatives, titled, "Time for a Vacation."

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So That's What Happened

Off the Kuff analyzes the 2004 and 2008 turnouts of mostly Hispanic and Black state rep. districts in Houston. And Mike Falick's Blog links to a site with historical results of presidential elections.

Here's the "Criminal Justice Implications of 2008 Elections" from Grits for Breakfast. And the Houston Chronicle consolidated all of its bloggers' election-related posts into one Election 2008 blog. Check it out here.

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Misc.

Local bloggers provide PoliTex with some of their favorite posts from the election season. And Rhetoric & Rhythm posts the Doonesbury strip the San Antonio Express-News wouldn't run.

Here's an interesting post from Rick Perry vs. The World: "Interpret this for me. Lots of google hits on this page over the past few days for some variation of 'rick perry term limits.'" (The blog is back, he says, because it "might actually happen this time.")

It's curtains for muckraker, who posts for the final time after picking up and moving to southern Illinois. And Friends of Justice is passing the hat around in order to stay afloat.

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This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is semi-settled in Austin. We cherry-pick the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. The opinions here belong (mostly) to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Our blogroll — the list of Texas blogs we watch — is on our links page, and if you know of a Texas political blog that ought to be on it, just shoot us a note. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey.

A group of 12 13 House Republicans wants another two years for House Speaker Tom Craddick.Under Rep. Wayne Christian's letterhead, the lawmakers list legislative accomplishments during Craddick's six-year tenure and say those things were done in spite of obstacles "including unprecedented efforts to disrupt the work of the House of Representatives" by parties not named in the letter. A second letter, over Leo Berman's signature, adds him to the mix. The lawmakers named (no signatures on the copy we got) are Warren Chisum of Pampa, Linda Harper-Brown of Irving, Carl Isett of Lubbock, Phil King of Weatherford, Jodie Laubenberg of Parker, Ken Paxton of McKinney, Dan Flynn of Van, Geannie Morrison of Victoria, Bryan Hughes of Mineola, Bill Callegari of Katy, Larry Taylor of Friendswood, and Christian. Craddick needs 63 more votes than that to win a majority in the House.

Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, won another term in the Legislature, and the Republicans hold the narrowest possible majority, with 76 House members to the Democrats' 74.Dallas County went through the military ballots that hadn't been counted in HD-105, adding five votes to her total. Provisional ballots were lopsided in favor of her opponent, but not enough so to flip the results. She ended up with a 20-vote lead (out of 40,753 cast) over Democrat Bob Romano, who's also from Irving. The panel inspecting the votes in that race had 231 provisional ballots to look at — ballots that had been set aside because of questions about the eligibility of the voters. Romano won 36 votes there, to Harper-Brown's 24. That wasn't enough to do the trick. He won in early voting. She won on Election Day. And with everything counted, she's the winner by a nose. James Baird, the Libertarian in that race, got 1,061 votes, keeping both of the major party candidates from crossing the 50 percent mark. A full recount could follow. Harper-Brown has been in the House for three terms; she's part of the big 2002 class that gave the Republican Party its first Texas House majority since Reconstruction. And she's a backer of House Speaker Tom Craddick, who is being challenged for that position and who, like his rivals, hasn't yet amassed the votes he needs to win another term.

Maybe you remember laughing about this cockamamie idea, or maybe this scheme. But Carole Keeton Strayhorn wasn't kidding — she is running for mayor.

Strayhorn met Wednesday evening near the Capitol with around 200 potential supporters, asked them all to write down four things they'd like the next mayor to do. She told the group that she'll be raising money — Louise Epstein will be her treasurer — and a full-blown announcement of her candidacy will come after the holidays.

The theme is "Carole for Mayor."

One attendee told us that she didn't use the word grandma at all; she's campaigned for the last few years as "One Tough Grandma." Among the attendees: Former Austin Mayor Lee Cooke, former UT Chancellor Bill Cunningham.

Strayhorn was already mayor of Austin once — after she'd been on the Austin school board and before she was a state insurance commissioner, railroad commissioner, and comptroller. She's lost three elections, including a run for Congress against former U.S. Rep. J.J. "Jake" Pickle, her initial bid for railroad commission, and her bid, as an independent in 2006, for governor against Rick Perry, Chris Bell and Kinky Friedman.

Texas Monthly got all some of the candidates for Speaker of the House to say why they want the job and what they'd do if they got it.Here's the link to "Speaker Up."

A peculiar statistic from the unofficial returns on this year's general election: Election Day voting was virtually the same in the presidential election this year as in the gubernatorial election two years ago.

This year, 2,701,376 people turned out on E-Day, about 33.5 percent of those who voted. Two years ago, 2,704,245 showed up on Election Day, about 61.5 percent of those who voted.

Total voting was higher this year, even though the Election Day numbers were flat: 8,053,036 voted in this year's election, while 4,399,068 voted two years ago.

Another note while you're looking at this chart: The raw number of voters is steadily increasing (goober years are lower than prexy years, but the trend line is up). But the turnout — as a percentage of what the Census folk call "Voting Age Population" — is slipping, or flat. In gubernatorial years starting five elections ago, the numbers were: 1990, 31.1 percent; 1994, 33.6 percent; 1998, 26.5 percent; 2002, 29.4 percent; and 2006, 26.4 percent. In presidential years, the series goes like so: 1992, 47.6 percent; 1996, 41 percent; 2000, 44.3 percent; 2004, 46.1 percent; and 2008, 45.4 percent.

This was the second presidential election in a row where early voting exceeded Election Day voting. But in 2004, when early voting accounted for 51 percent of the total, it was fairly close. This time, the early vote accounted for two of every three votes — 66.5 percent. The state hasn't done that in a gubernatorial election year. The highest in recent history was in 2000, when 38.8 percent of the voters went early.

Only 88 of the state's 254 counties had early turnouts of less than 50 percent of the total vote. In Dickens County, only 17 people voted early, out of 972 voters. That's an early turnout of 1.7 percent.

In Wichita County, 80.6 percent of the votes were in the box before Election Day. Early voting accounted for more than 70 percent of the total in some of the state's biggest counties, including Bexar, Brazoria, Collin, Denton, Fort Bend, Lubbock, Tarrant, Travis, and Williamson.

Obama won only 28 of Texas' 254 counties, but they included some of the big ones. McCain won by nearly one million votes (946,854, to be unofficially exact). He did it by beating the Democrat in 226 counties, racking up an advantage of 1.4 million votes. Obama offset that with the 464,551 margin he amassed in 28 counties.What's interesting, though, is what counties fell where. McCain did best in suburban and large rural counties (Tarrant County being the big exception). Obama did best in urban counties and in South Texas.

Third-party candidates were a non-starter in the presidential race, getting only 64,124 of the 8.1 million votes cast.

Remember when everyone was looking at the numbers from the top 15 counties and talking about a Democratic turnout? They weren't that far off, but those counties weren't representative of the state. If only the top 15 counties had counted, Obama would have won in Texas. Those counties, taken together, voted blue; the margins there were obliterated by the rest of the state's voters. That was even more pronounced in the 10 largest counties. And the keys to the Democrat's victories there were Travis and Dallas counties, each of which gave Obama margins of more than 110,000 votes.

A few big counties didn't tip hard to one candidate or the other. In Harris County, the spread only accounted for 1.6 percent of the vote. It went to Obama, who picked up almost 19,000 votes over McCain, but that big number is, in that county, little more than a rounding error. Fort Bend County surprised a lot of watchers by almost landing at center court: Only 4,710 votes out of 102,846 separated the two candidates. Take that county out of the reliably Republican column. The difference in Bexar County was only 5.5 percent; Obama got the 29,091 vote difference, but it wasn't a landslide.

The smallest margin, in raw votes, was in Kenedy County, where Obama finished 15 votes ahead of McCain. Next in line was Hudspeth County, where McCain won by 28 votes.

You'll be sitting there in the Texas House in a few months, all set for the slow drone of another legislative day, when two dozen TV cameras come out of nowhere.

We call them TV bills, and the first legislative filings have plenty of potential (this was the first week bills could be filed for the 2009 session). This stuff is sometimes serious, sometimes goofy. It grabs headlines. It sucks the air out of everything else, eats time and attention and gets more press than some of the big things, like the budget and big industry regulation. Remember the cheerleader booty bill a couple of sessions ago seeking to regulate overtly sexual dancing at high school football games? The HPV vaccine? School vouchers? TV City.

Sample bill captions — the titles on the legislation — from the early offerings for the next legislative session:

• Relating to providing Internet access in certain local public libraries.

• Relating to the determination of the appraised value of a residence homestead for ad valorem taxation.

• Relating to an offense of using a wireless communication device while operating a motor vehicle in a school crossing zone.

• Relating to prohibitions on the use of a wireless communication device while operating a motor vehicle.

• Relating to repeal of authority for the establishment and operation of the Trans-Texas Corridor.

• Relating to disclosing information to persons obtaining emergency contraception.

• Relating to the procedures for registering to vote and accepting a voter at a polling place.

• Relating to requiring a voter to present proof of identification.

• Relating to limits on political contributions and expenditures in connection with certain legislative and executive offices.

• Relating to the use of direct recording electronic voting machines.

• Relating to the limitation on increases in the appraised value of a residence homestead for ad valorem taxation.

• Relating to the election of the commissioner of insurance.

• Relating to eliminating automatic admission to certain public institutions of higher education based on high school grade point average.

• Relating to regulation of property and casualty insurance rates.

• Relating to a limitation on the amount of tuition charged by public institutions of higher education.

A lobbyist who doesn't want his name in this newsletter or anywhere else offered up a new phrase for this phase of the race for speaker: Legislative Osteoporosis. He's referring to bone loss in the spines of some lawmakers.

Have a little sympathy. They're stuck between Speaker Tom Craddick and a sea of contenders for his job. Everybody's claiming momentum, but only one list has been made public and it's only got 13 names on it.

The Democrats claim 64 signatures on the Not Craddick pledge we wrote about last week. That's a lot, if they're all there and all telling the truth, but it's not the 76 required to knock the guy off.

You can add eight to ten Republicans to that if you include those who say they want to be speaker and those who say, directly or not, that they're looking for a change.

That's not 76, either, but it's close enough to give you goosebumps.

The short list is from a letter of support for Craddick from 13 Republicans. That's the 98-pounder on this beach and it caused some nervous giggles in the House and in the lobby world, but at least they're showing their names. That's unusual at this point.

They got some clarity out of Linda Harper-Brown's apparent win in HD-105. If that holds, the Republicans are in the majority. A Democratic speaker would be unlikely, so you can halve the number of candidates for now (a recount is likely).

That helped a bit. But in fact, there's been almost no public movement in days, as members tentatively feel their way though this.

They don't like it. Nobody wants to land on the losing side, whether they like Craddick or not, and that might be the incumbent's strongest selling point at the moment.

Delay works against him, one argument goes, because this institutional hesitation underscores his weak position and gives his foes time to forge deals and work on wavering lawmakers. The other side of that: Craddick's done this before. He's good at it, and the fact that the other side hasn't closed the deal is giving him time to talk to enough people to win him a fourth term.

Go back to those numbers, though: House Democratic leader Jim Dunnam of Waco sent a memo to his colleagues saying they've got 64. They're not naming names, but that'd be a helluva bluff.

The next play might come in Bastrop County, where the Republicans hold their first post-election gathering next week at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort. They'll get a head-count, or might get one, and Craddick will have a solid idea of whether he can survive in a chamber with 76 Republicans and 74 Democrats.

It's probably not that important at this point to get 76 signatures on the Democrat's petition. They've framed the issue — keep him or quit him — and managed to make the scramble to replace him a secondary issue. That sort of scramble, you'll recall, helped undo the challengers to Craddick two years ago.

We're sticking with that headline for another week.

The current list of challengers on the GOP side includes Byron Cook of Corsicana, Dan Gattis of Georgetown, Delwin Jones of Lubbock, Jim Keffer of Eastland, Edmund Kuempel of Seguin, Tommy Merritt of Longview, Jim Pitts of Waxahachie, and Burt Solomons of Carrollton.

It seems like ancient history in some ways, but the scrap over the Texas Two-Step — the caucus/popular vote process for choosing presidential candidates in the Democratic primaries — is coming to a head.The Democrats came out of the primaries, and then out of their convention in Austin a few months later, with a promise to reexamine their oddball system. Sen. Royce West of Dallas headed a panel that's been around the state hearing from Democrats. Now they're ready to talk about changes. Party officials have said they want to tweak the system without killing it; others want to nix the caucus half of the deal and are loud about it, operating under the banner of Change the Caucus.

Refresher course: Democrats in Texas vote in primaries, then go to caucus meetings to choose delegates for their candidates. Barack Obama lost to Hillary Clinton in the voting, then beat her in the caucuses. They split the delegates and the whole confusing thing managed to irk Democrats on both sides. They meet Friday of this week for the last time. Recommendations will follow.

• The Secretary of State will canvass general election votes as early as next week (11/19). Candidates who want recounts have until two days after that's done to make their requests; after that, they have to live with what they got.

• Brian Walker of Tatum hasn't yet decided whether to ask for a recount. He also lost to an incumbent, but to a Democrat — Chuck Hopson of Jacksonville. The spread in that race was 102 votes and the four counties are split in their voting systems: In two, it's paper ballots; in two others, voters can choose between voting on a paper ballot or on an electronic ballot.

• Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst hosted a fundraiser for Republican Joan Huffman this week. Coming up: A funder for Democrat Chris Bell at Sen. Kirk Watson's house in Austin. Huffman and Bell face off in a special election runoff for the SD-17 Senate seat next month. Gov. Rick Perry hasn't yet set the date for that. The canvass in that election is set for Tuesday and Perry has to pick a date between 20 and 45 days after that canvass. That would put it somewhere after the first week in December.

• Several commercial real estate trade groups have formed a super-group — the Real Estate Development Association of Texas — to handle legislative worries for all of them. The joiners include the Real Estate Council of Austin, the Real Estate Council (Dallas), Greater Fort Worth Real Estate Council, the Houston Real Estate Council, Houstonians for Responsible Growth, and the Real Estate Council of San Antonio.

After the elections but before the (national) recounts, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison told a pack of reporters in Austin that she didn't see anything in the election results that would change her plans. Now there's a calculation about the GOP's status in the U.S. Senate to consider if she plans to step down early to run for governor.

Hutchison wasn't explicit about her plans, but she's a terrific political flirt, acknowledging her interest in running for governor without actually declaring her candidacy.

"I'm on the same course that I have been on. Nothing has changed my views about what I'll be starting to look at," she said.

"Let me say that I have looked at this from all angles, and I believe that from the standpoint of Texas in the Senate, if I did decide to step down in order to run for governor, that Texas would be, actually, well-positioned because John Cornyn will have had a full term and this is really a better time to be bringing someone new in, with seniority, to build seniority, when you've got someone that has it. Four years ago would have been less advantageous. But I think today is really the right time for Texas. I always think if you can that it's better to have one person with seniority and then the new person coming in, so that's about where we would be if I made that decision, which I have not," she said.

The situation in the U.S. Senate has changed some, but it's not clear that would affect her trajectory. And there's no requirement that she step down to run for governor. After all, Barack Obama and John McCain remained in the Senate while they were running for president.

So what if Democrats in Georgia, Minnesota, and Alaska pull rabbits out of their hats and bring their party's number in the U.S. Senate to 60? What if two come through and bring it to 59? Does that play into Hutchison's decision?

Alaska is in an excruciatingly slow count to determine whether Ted Stevens, the Republican incumbent, won his reelection bid. He was behind Mark Begich at this writing, but they're still tabulating. In Minnesota, they're recounting the results that put Republican Norm Coleman a couple of hundred votes ahead of comedian/writer Al Franken. And in Georgia, a runoff will decide whether Republican Saxby Chambliss comes back or is replaced by Jim Martin.

Those outcomes could bring the Senate closer to 60, which is the number of senators it takes to remove political minorities' legislative obstructions. If the GOP holds 41 seats, they have the power, if they can stay together, to block votes on legislation they don't like.

So Hutchison could have some extra things to think about. Should she resign early to prepare for a state election? Would that open up a national fight over her seat, with both parties trying to get an edge on that magic number?

The arguments for leaving the Senate: She would be able to devote all of her time and energy to the governor's race — raising money and cooking up policy ideas — without the heavy workload and the risky votes that come with the start of a new administration. It would signal to any remaining doubters that she is serious about the state bid and isn't backing out. And it would let her spend her time in Texas instead of shuttling between her homes in Dallas and the Washington, D.C. area. The arguments against: She gives up her power and a position that allows her to remain easily in the public eye. She isn't in Texas during a legislative session, with its temptation to do a running commentary on the Legislature and on the governor she's likely to face in the 2010 GOP primary. And she can raise as much, or more, money as a sitting U.S. Senator than as a former one. All of the federal money she raises can be converted, with few restrictions, to a state race.

If she bails early, Gov. Rick Perry will appoint her temporary successor and call a special election for the person who'll then hold the seat until 2012, when her term ends. Hutchison got to the job that way, knocking off U.S. Sen. Bob Krueger and a couple of dozen also-rans. The onus would be on Perry to appoint someone — and on the Republicans to back someone — who didn't mess up the numbers in the U.S. Senate.

If, after all that, the new Texas senator is a Democrat, the blame probably wouldn't go to Hutchison. It'd go first to the Republican who lost the race, and then to the governor who appointed that person.

What the pollster saw. What the prosecutor said. What made the Democrats jump. And what the Legislature will be allowed to spend.

Republican pollster Mike Baselice says the base margin separating Republicans and Democrats in this state election narrowed by 3.62 percentage points. Republicans retain an advantage, but it's skinnier than before. He had a couple other notes of note: Only a quarter of the total vote was cast in places where the GOP's fortunes improved, while 54 percent of the votes were recorded in places where Democratic fortunes improved. Baselice was on a panel talking to the Professional Advocacy Association of Texas.

• That crowd also heard from the new ethics sheriff in town: Travis County District Attorney-elect Rosemary Lehmberg, who'll replace Ronnie Earle in January.

She told the crowd not to expect any change in that office's emphasis on ethics, and told the lobbyist that this is "a most troubling era for your profession in history, particularly in Washington."

Her background was in the trial courts, and she said her approach is more "evidence-based" than Earle's "philosophically based" approach to cases, but left the impression that she's not going easy on people who get out of line.

"I am always ready to hear from someone who made a mistake, but I have little tolerance for those trying to work around the law and even less for those who thumb their nose at the law," she said.

An example of the latter? "Extravagant trips and benefits [to lawmakers] that we hear about... will always be given close scrutiny in my office," Lehmberg said.

The new D.A. said she wants to work with lobbyists and others when possible and said her office has published some guidelines on corporate involvement in politics.

She also said, unrelated to all of that, that her office will have a full-time environmental prosecutor on board early next year and that she's been talking to folks at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality about that. Her office has statewide jurisdiction on some of the issues regulated by that agency.

• Secret ballots are legal in races for House Speaker, according to Democrats reacting to a newspaper quote from the Speaker's office.

Alexis DeLee, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Tom Craddick, was quoted in the San Antonio Express-News saying, "The Texas Constitution requires a record vote to be open if requested by three members on any question. The House could close the ballot, but it will have to be open if requested by three members."

But such ballots were ruled constitutional when the issue arose two years ago, and the Texas Supreme Court gave them a green light just a few years ago when the Senate was electing a presiding officer to replace Rick Perry, who left that gig to become Guv when George W. Bush moved to Washington, D.C.

Secretary of State Roger Williams — presiding over the House two years ago — turned back a challenge to secret ballots, citing House history and practice and the court ruling. That's recounted in a memo to Democratic colleagues from Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, who ends with a towel snap: "So the next time you hear someone in Craddick's office say that the House can't use a secret ballot, you can tell them they're flat wrong."

• Brian Walker, the Republican who lost by 102 votes to Rep. Chuck Hopson, D-Jacksonville, wants a recount. He says that "credible reports" indicate some ballots in that HD-11 race were improperly rejected.

• And the Legislative Budget Board adopted a fairly conservative limit on budget growth that will hold increases in spending on undedicated state tax revenue to 9.14 percent, or about $6.7 billion. The LBB chose from five estimates of how the state economy will grow over the next biennium, ranging from a low of 7.74 percent to a high of 14.82 percent. And the limit they've chosen can be manipulated some. The comptroller's revenue estimate isn't out, and the numbers there set the actual numbers on the dollar limit. And any emergency appropriations that spend money in the current budget — that's spending that happens before next September — will raise the base amount. Raise the base, and you raise the limit.

Andrew Weber is the new First Assistant to Attorney General Greg Abbott, replacing Kent Sullivan, who got a new gig (see below). Weber was the Clerk to the Texas Supreme Court and an attorney in private practice before signing on as Deputy AG for Legal Counsel about a year ago. Jonathan Frels, now chief of the public finance division in the AG's office, will move into the job Weber is leaving.

Comal County Tax Assessor-Collector Sherman Krause joins Comptroller Susan Combs' office as head of a revamped Property Tax Assistance Division. That's the division that, among other things, oversees county appraisal district valuations of property for taxes; Combs also is moving appeals of rulings from the comptroller's office to the State Office of Administrative Hearings, so appraisal districts can go to another agency when they disagee with the comptroller's work.

Charles Cooper is the state's new banking commissioner. The former federal bank examiner and bank executive started this week. Randall James retired from that job earlier this year.

Jim Harrison will be the new head of intergovernmental relations for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. He's currently in the governor's office of homeland security.

Glenn Shankle, the recently retired executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, is hanging out a lobby shingle. He and a couple of former TCEQ colleagues — Sonia Ralls and Kerri Rowland — will concentrate on environmental issues at the legislative and agency level.

M. Scott Norman gets rid of the word interim, becoming executive director of the Texas Association of Builders. He's been at that trade group since 2003, when he left a staff spot in the Texas Senate.

Daniel Donohoe moved to Comerica as director of government relations from JPMorgan Chase. He'll remain based in Dallas.

Gov. Rick Perry followed the election with a bunch of postings, including several judicial appointments that will stand until the next general elections (and didn't have to weather this year's political storms):

• Kent Sullivan, the state's first assistant attorney general, to the 14th Court of Appeals in Houston. He's a former state district judge, and replaces Wanda Fowler.

• Sylvia Matthews, a Houston attorney with Andrews and Kurth, to the 281st District Court, replacing David Bernal.

• Don Hinde, an attorney with Steele Sturm in Houston, to the 269th District Court, replacing John Wooldridge.

• David Peeples of San Antonio as presiding judge of the Fourth Administrative Judicial Region; that's a reappointment.

• Stephen Ables of Kerrville as presiding judge of the Sixth Administrative Judicial Region; he presides in the 216 District Court, and is being reappointed to the admin job.

• Kelly Moore of Brownfield as presiding judge of the Ninth Administrative Judicial Region; that's a reappointment, and Moore is the judge in the 121st District Court.

The non-judicial wheel was turning, too. Perry appointed:

• David Baucom of Sulphur Springs to the Texas Medical Board. He's president of an insurance agency.

• Jose Cuevas Jr., founder and president of JumBurrito in Midland, to the chairmanship of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, and Melinda Fredricks of Conroe to a spot on that same board. She's a former teacher and community volunteer.

• Mike Allen, Claudell Kercheville, and Scott Parker to the Upper Guadalupe River Authority Board. All three are from Kerrville. Allen is chairman of Union State Bank. Kercheville is retired from Frost Bank San Antonio. Parker is a retired attorney.

• Bryan Shaw, Barry Smitherman, and Michael Williams to the new Texas Advisory Panel on Federal Environmental Regulations, which will report back on the impact of federal greenhouse gas regulations. Shaw is on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Smitherman is chairman of the Public Utility Commission. And Williams was just reelected to the Texas Railroad Commission.

• Dr. Lloyd Garland of Lubbock and former Rep. Ruben Hope of Montgomery to the State Office of Risk Management.

• Kathleen Hill of Hutto to the Texas Board of Occupational Therapy Examiners. She works at Seton Children's Therapy Gym at Cedar Park.

• Raymond "Tripp" Davenport III of Southlake to another term on the Texas Ethics Commission. He's an investment banker and veep at Banc of America Securities.

• A.W. "Whit" Riter III of Tyler and Fred Heldenfels IV of Austin to the top spots on the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Riter's the new chair, is president of Riter Management Co. and the A.W. Riter Jr. Family Foundation. Heldenfels, now the vice chair, is president and CEO of Heldenfels Enterprises Inc.