Political People and their Moves

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus announced that Frank Battle will serve as his general counsel and House ethics advisor. Battle has previously served as general counsel and policy advisor to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and worked in the House before he took that job.

Straus also named Shalla Santos the new assistant parliamentarian and special counsel. Santos will work alongside Chris Griesel, who has served as parliamentarian since 2011.

This is partly connected to that: Dewhurst hired Constance Allison as senior policy advisor, Bryan Hebert as general counsel, Lauren Hensarling as scheduler and Matt Hirsch as press secretary. Allison most recently served as the chief of staff for Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, who is retiring after this term. Hebert, who worked previously for the lieutenant governor, most recently served as co-founder and executive director of the Texas Conservative Roundtable. Hensarling served as the director of constituent services for Straus. And Hirsch was the communications director for Dewhurst’s recent U.S. Senate campaign.

Chuck McDonald is handling communications for Paul Sadler’s U.S. Senate campaign, signing on to help the Democrat while also keeping his public affairs business. McDonald works mainly for corporate clients now, but has lots of politics — notably working for then-Gov. Ann Richards — on his resume. 

Democrat Lyndon Laird dropped out of the SD-22 race against Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, leaving the incumbent without a major party opponent. Libertarian Tom Kilbride is still in the race. 

Gov. Rick Perry named Bill O’Neal of Carthage as the Texas state historian. O’Neal is an award-winning nonfiction author and a history instructor at Panola College.

Perry has also appointed Anna Hundley of Dallas and Calvin Turner of Austin to the State Independent Living Council, and Stephen Gersuk of Plano to the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities.

Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP added Erika Benson as a partner in the firm’s Austin office. Benson, a former senior advisor for the Americas in the Office of Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy, has more than 13 years of experience in energy, government relations and Latin America law.