At long last, we know who’ll be working on what in the House. The full list is here (PDF); a list of chairs only is beneath the fold. Evan notes that Dems got 16 of 18 chairs. The main concern of course has been with Voter ID. I would have preferred a Democratic chair, or a Republican chair with a Democratic majority, but what we got was a 5-4 GOP split with the generally non-crazy but still partisan Todd Smith as chair and an all-ideologue supporting cast: Betty Brown, Linda Harper Brown, Dennis Bonnen, and Dwayne Bohac. The Dems on the committee – Vice Chair Aaron Pena, Alma Allen, Rafael Anchia, and Joe Heflin – will have some work to do to keep anything onerous from escaping.
(I should note at this point that even with the shenanigans in the Senate, there are still things that can be done in that chamber to keep a voter ID bill from passing. And if there’s a compromise along the lines of same day voter registration plus an aggressively-pushed free ID distribution program, I might be able to live with that. Needless to say, this will be a highly visible issue.)
Beyond that, I’d have preferred an urban rep or two as the leaders of the Environmental Regs committee, but at least the seniority appointments are good, with Lon Burnam, Jessica Farrar, and Jim Dunnam. Marc Veasey was a good choice as well. For everything else, we’ll just have to see how it plays out. I still think we’re way better off now than we’d have been with another term of Tom Craddick. BOR has more.
And on a moderately related side note, you can follow Speaker Straus on Twitter. Hopefully, he’ll have a better idea of when not to use it than some other Republicans have had. Thanks to Elise for the link.
List of committee chairs:
Agriculture & Livestock – Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles
Appropriations – Jim Pitts
Border & International Affairs – Veronica Gonzales
Business & Industry – Joe Deshotel
Calendars – Brian McCall
Corrections – Jim McReynolds
County Affairs – Garnet Coleman
Criminal Jurisprudence – Pete Gallego
Culture, Recreation & Tourism – Mark Homer
Defense & Veterans Affairs – Frank Corte
Elections – Todd Smith
Energy Resources – Jim Keffer
Environmental Regulation – Byron Cook
General Investigation & Ethics – Chuck Hopson
Higher Education – Dan Branch
House Administration – Charlie Geren
Human Services – Patrick Rose
Insurance – John Smithee
Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence – Todd Hunter
Land & Resource Management – Dennis Bonnen
Licensing & Adminstrative Procedures – Ed Kuempel
Local Consent & Calendars – Senfronia Thompson
Natural Resources – Allan Ritter
Pensions Investments & Financial Services – Vicki Truitt
Public Education – Rob Eissler
Public Health – Lois Kolkhorst
Public Safety – Tommy Merritt
Redistricting – Delwin Jones
Rules & Resolutions – Ruth Jones McClendon
State Affairs – Burt Solomons
Technology, Economic Development & Workforce – Mark Strama
Transportation – Joe Pickett
Urban Affairs – Yvonne Davis
Ways & Means – Rene Oliveira