Some quick hits on the candidate filing front:

- In State House news, the Democrats now have candidates for HDs 127 and 135. Joe Montemayor will run against Joe Crabb in the Kingwood-area district, while Trey Fleming, whom we'd first heard about last month, will take on Gary Elkins. Montemayor has met with Diane Trautman's supporters from that district and has gotten good marks from them. Having a strong candidate there will help the countywide effort as well as giving the widely disliked and perennially underperforming Crabb a run for his money. Stace has more on that. Meanwhile, on the GOP side, in a rare battle that doesn't involve Tom Craddick, Dan Patrick's boy Allen Fletcher has made his challenge against Corbin Van Arsdale official. That ought to be fun to watch.

- Dale Henry, the 2006 candidate for Railroad Commissioner, is back in the saddle for that office. I have some mixed feelings about this - Henry's invisible campaign last year (dude didn't even have a website) doesn't exactly inspire confidence - but a lot of people I respect think highly of him, and at the very least it appears he'll be running something more like a modern operation this time around. I'm willing to be persuaded. More on that is here.

- We may have a candidate for the remaining Supreme Court seat, and at least one non-JR Molina option for the Court of Criminal Appeals. Jim Jordan is the name for the former, and Susan Strawn is the latter. Both are trying to gather the signatures they need to qualify for the ballot. Anyone who wants to help with this, drop me a note and I'll pass along the info you'll need to assist.

- Lastly, John Truitt, the independent candidate in CD07, sent out an email saying his Declaration of Intent to run as an Independent Candidate for US Representative 7th District was approved by the Texas Secretary of State's office earlier this week. He'll still have to get his petition signatures turned in and validated before he's official, which takes place after the primaries. He needs 500 valid sigs, which shouldn't be too hard for anyone not named Steve Stockman.

We'll see how active things are today, the last weekday before the holiday. Stay tuned.