Buddy Garcia, a former aide to Gov. Rick Perry who has been serving on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, will take the empty seat at the Texas Railroad Commission until a new commissioner is chosen in the elections. Perry could have waited until after the May primaries (0r the July runoffs) and named the winner of the GOP contest between Warren Chisum, Christi Craddick, Roland Sledge, and three others. Or he could have appointed one of them, effectively making an endorsement in that race. This appointment dodges that bullet, gives Garcia another notch on his resume, and clears the way for Perry to name someone new at TCEQ.

Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, appointed Charles Matthews and Andrew Card Jr. to serve on the Select Committee on Economic Development.  Card, former chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is Acting Dean of The Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M University, and serves on the Advisory Board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Matthews, an attorney, served as Vice President and General Counsel for ExxonMobil until 2010.

Gov. Rick Perry appointed Stephen Bristow of Graham as judge of the 90th Judicial District Court in Young and Stephens counties. Bristow is an attorney in private practice, former Young County attorney, and former district attorney for Young and Stephens counties.

Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson named Lubbock County’s court administration director, David Slayton, the new administrative director of the Texas Office of Court Administration. Slayton was previously the court services supervisor for the U.S. District Court in Dallas.

Lt. Governor David Dewhurst appointed Jan Newton to the Sunset Advisory Commission. Newton is currently serving on the Northeast Power Coordinating Council.

Kim Bonnen re-joined the Locke Lord Texas Public Law Group. Most recently, she was an associate with Vinson & Elkins. She's married to Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton.

Lidia Agraz has been named executive director of the Texas Book Festival. She is a former vice president of government relations and public affairs for Time Warner Cable in Central Texas. 

Press corp moves: Dave Montgomery, late of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which closed its Austin bureau earlier this year, is joining the Fort Worth Business Press. He'll report from Austin for that publication, which is run by a former Startlegram publisher, Richard Connor.

Deaths: Bernard Rapoport, former chairman of the University of Texas Board of Regents, a generous philanthropist and a liberal stalwart who helped finance Democratic candidates and causes for decades. He was 94.

Carlos Truan, a Corpus Christi Democrat who started in the Texas House in 1969 and in the Senate, where he later became dean, in 1977. He was instrumental in establishing bilingual education in Texas public schools. Truan was 76.