John Kuempel, son of the late state Rep. Edmund Kuempel, R-Seguin, easily won the special election to replace his father tonight, pulling 65.7 percent of the votes in a ten-candidate field.The younger Kuempel, also R-Seguin, outpaced six other Republicans, two Democrats and a Libertarian, winning in each of the district's three counties, according to unofficial results compiled by the Texas Secretary of State. Only one other candidate, Gary Inmon, finished in double digits. Inmon got 10.2 percent of the votes.

Surrounded by statewide elected officials and a pack of fellow lawmakers, Democrats Aaron Peña of Edinburg and Allan Ritter of Nederland defected to the Republican Party this afternoon. After 22 new freshman Republicans are sworn in next month, the flips will give the GOP 100 votes in the Texas House; an election for an open seat is being held today in a district widely expected to elect a 101st Republican. Gov. Rick Perry, a former Democrat who switched before the 1990 elections, welcomed them in, joined by a group that included Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, House Speaker Joe Straus, Attorney General Greg Abbott, Railroad Commissioners Michael Williams and Victor Carrillo and Commissioner-elect David Porter, GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri, and about two dozen Republican legislators. Ritter said he received a handful of calls from people who didn't like the switch but wasn't feeling any real heat, even though his home is a base for unions and some of the state's prominent trial lawyers. "I was a Democrat that voted for tort reform from Jefferson County," he said. "I'm used to pressure." Both men say they have no intention to resign and seek re-election, as then-Congressman Phil Gramm did in the 1980s, to ask voters to ratify the switch. Both say they'll return money to donors who ask. Peña, asked if his donors included the Democratic Party, answered, "I think I can say no, and that's part of the problem."

One of the Texas House's newest employees is 80-year-old Gene Seaman, a former state representative and former Nueces County Republican Party chairman who served in the House from 1997 to 2007. Seaman, who lost to state Rep. Juan Garcia, D-Corpus Christi, is coming in as the top aide to freshman Rep. Raul Torres, a Republican who beat Democrat Solomon Ortiz Jr. last month. Drop the other foot: James Ho, who left the job of Texas solicitor general in last week's episode, is returning to the law firm he left three years ago: Gibson Dunn. He'll be a partner in the firm's Dallas office. Chris Lippincott will join the Weber Shandwick PR firm after almost five years at the Texas Department of Transportation. He'll work in the firm's Austin office. Alexis Delee, a political and communications op best known as the spokeswoman for former Speaker Tom Craddick and for the Republican Party of Texas, joins Crosswind Communications; she'll be a veep in that PR firm's Austin office.