Eleanor Kitzman’s tenure as Texas insurance commissioner will probably end this month, according to Senate Nominations Chairman Glenn Hegar, R-Katy. He set the agenda for what he thinks will be his last committee meeting without adding her name to the list of people under consideration. Failing to win the Senate’s blessing during the regular legislative session would force her out of that major regulatory post when the session ends May 27.

U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Rockwall, says he will seek another term in 2014. He is 90, and the oldest member of Congress.

Republican Konni Burton of Colleyville will run for the Texas Senate in SD-10, where Democrat Wendy Davis of Fort Worth is the incumbent. Burton is a member of the Tea Party Caucus Advisory Committee, a group that meets with Republican lawmakers during the session. Among her first endorsers: Freshman Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford. 

Travis Brock is the new executive director of the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee. He’s been working on political campaigns in Nevada for the past six years. 

Cheryl MacBride, deputy director of services at the Texas Department of Public Safety, was reelected to the Employee Retirement System board of directors.

Charged: Phillip Monroe Ballard, accused of trying to hire someone to kill U.S. District Judge John McBryde of Fort Worth. Ballard, 71, was facing tax charges when he tried to hire what turned out to be an FBI agent posing as a killer.

Deaths: Billie Sol Estes, a legendary West Texas con man who went to prison for selling non-existent fertilizer tanks in the early 1960s and returned to prison in the late 1970s on convictions for mail fraud and federal tax charges. He was 88.