Tanya Vasquez, until now a staffer with Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, is leaving to join Equitas Strategies, a new Democratic consulting firm in Austin started by the Robert Jones who's not a lobbyist. Matt Phillips is leaving Sen. Steve Ogden's employ after five years with the Bryan Republican; he's the new government relations director for the Brazos River Authority. The Associated Republicans of Texas has new officers: Hector DeLeon of Austin will be chairman and treasurer; Dr. Walter Wilkerson of Conroe, vice chair; William McMinn of Houston will be finance chairman and Pat Sweeney Robbins of Austin will be the secretary. Related: Norm Newton, who's still on that group's board, is cooking up a new political action committee: The Alliance PAC will back pro-bidness candidates. Gov. Rick Perry named Conrith Davis, a sales exec with AS Legal in Sugar Land, to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. The governor named Juan Sanchez Munoz of Lubbock to the Texas Youth Commission. He's an associate professor at Texas Tech University and a special assistant to that school's president. Perry named James Greer, an exec and engineer with TXU Electric Delivery in Keller, and G. Kemble Bennett, vice chancellor for engineering at the Texas A&M University System, to the Texas Board of Professional Engineers. Perry reappointed John Snider as chairman of the Finance Commission; he's president of Shelby Savings Bank in Center. And the State Health Services Council has two new members and two reappointed ones. The newbies are Graciela Cigarroa, a San Antonio attorney, and Jacinto Juarez, a computer science prof and dean emeritus at Laredo Community College. Perry reappointed Dr. Jaime Davidson, who teaches at UT Southwestern Medical School and is president Endocrine and Diabetes Associates in Dallas, and Jim Springfield, president and CEO of Valley Baptist Health System in Harlingen.

A group of senators, irked by the lieutenant governor's chronic tardiness, are circulating a letter asking David Dewhurst to let them know when he's not gonna make it to the start of each legislative session so they can put someone in the chair to get things going until he's present.Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, wouldn't give us a copy of the letter and said the senators are not trying to embarrass anyone. He didn't say how many senators have signed, or which ones. But they'd like to get going when they're supposed to get going, and the letter is meant as a gentle prod in that direction. Other senators have talked about changing the rules in the upper chamber to automatically put the president pro tempore or the Dean of the Senate in the chair when the Lite Guv isn't on hand. That would be more than a gentle prod.