Elise Hu has the list of committees and members for the State Senate, which came out yesterday. Not much drama here - as she noted, Sen. John Carona, the on Republican vote against changing the rules for voter ID bills, got the same chairs as last time. One change was the appointment of Sen. Judith Zaffirini to the chair of Higher Education, which has been Sen. Florence Shapiro's job in 2007. Patricia Kilday Hart looks at the politics and rumors behind that, and says it was a good choice regardless of the motives. Michael Hurta thinks Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst gave a lot of power to Sen. Dan Patrick, though as noted in the comments Patrick did not get the assignment to the Finance Committee, which is the Senate version of Appropriations, that he's wanted since his election. Make of that what you will.