Analysis: Senate Decks Shuffled a Little Early

Some legislatures base committee assignments who gets to serve on which panel, who gets the controlling middle seat and so forth on seniority or party. In Texas, while there are some provisions for seniority and whatnot, committee assignments are ultimately up to the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House.

Assignments are subject to fiat and caprice and power politics, in other words something like the folkways you came to love or hate in the pecking order back in high school.

Good assignments make senators important. Bad ones can undermine their mojo for years.

Now, a combination of early resignations and new assignments has complicated things in the Senate, giving big jobs to legislators who have to wait six months before they know whether they will still hold these positions. Theyve got power, but they are temps.

The committee lineups will be set again at the beginning of the regular session in January. But there has been a burst of activity this summer, particularly in the Senate.

House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, filled a couple of gaps out of necessity, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a lame duck, took one last shot at reshaping the Senate, shuffling assignments and making changes that could arguably have been left to his successor.

Of the two main contenders for his job, Dan Patrick the Republican who defeated Dewhurst this year in a runoff would love to hand control of the committees to the conservatives whose politics match up closest with his own. The other candidate, Leticia Van de Putte, would be expected to put more of her fellow Democrats in control with a couple of moderate Republicans tossed in for spice, if only because there arent enough Democrats to go around.

Those chances will come in January. Dewhurst raised the stakes by naming people to jobs that they will hold for only six months, and only while the Legislature is mostly idle.

The Senate is a smaller body with 31 members to the Houses 150 and each empty seat leaves a more significant hole. For instance, two Republican state senators, Tommy Williams and Robert Duncan, have resigned, the former to become a vice chancellor for the Texas A&M University System and the latter to become the chancellor of the Texas Tech University System.

Their exits have left two major committees, Finance and State Affairs, leaderless and opened two seats on the 10-member Legislative Budget Board. Finance writes the state budget, a process already well underway in advance of the legislative session. State Affairs handles general but major state issues, and could safely have been left without a leader until the session.

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Analysis: Senate Decks Shuffled a Little Early