Political People and their Moves

Rep. Dan Branch picked up endorsements for his attorney general bid from former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Phillips and former Justices Craig Enoch, Harriet O’Neill and Alberto Gonzales

Marissa Patton joins the Austin legislative staff of the Texas Farm Bureau after stints with U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.

Christina Wisdom joins the government affairs group at Gardere Wynn Sewell after several years as veep and general counsel at the Texas Chemical Council.

Joe Peters will head the Driver License Division at the Department of Public Safety. He first started as a state trooper in 1968, retired in 1998 and came back in 2012.

Ann Beeson started as the new executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities this week, replacing Scott McCown, who resigned earlier this year to take a teaching post at the University of Texas law school. Beeson is an attorney most recently posted at the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas. She was previously executive director of U.S. programs at the Open Society Foundations and a lawyer in the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Gov. Rick Perry appointed:

Ada Brown of Plano as justice on the 5th Court of Appeals. Brown is a lawyer with McKool Smith, and a former judge and prosecutor.

John Crain of Dallas and Gilbert “Pete” Peterson III of Alpine to the Texas Historical Commission. Crain is president of the Summerlee Foundation. Petterson is an exec at West Texas National Bank. Both are being reappointed.

J. Winston Krause of Austin to chair the Texas Lottery Commission. He’s a lawyer with Krause and Associates.

Deaths: Harris County District Attorney Mike Anderson, during his first year in office and just three months after he announced he was fighting cancer. He was 57.