Perry Shuffles Press Offices

Gov. Rick Perry has promoted his long-serving (and long-suffering, no doubt) press secretary, Kathy Walt, to special assistant for communications, while Robert Black – Perry's officious spokesman during this year's election rout – advances to chief talker for the governor's office. Ted Royer, a Perry speechwriter, will become deputy press secretary. In her new job, Walt, a statehouse reporter for The Houston Chronicle before she jumped to Perry's office in 2000, will help direct the Governor's Competitive Council, the latest of Perry's economic development initiatives. The new council will combine the wisdom of private industries and the higher ed and K-12 communities in an effort to fatten Texas' economic opportunities. And just think what it might do for Perry's political career as a potential vice presidential nominee. To be sure, Walt will have her work cut out for her. Her new duties will also require her to cajole state agencies into doing their part to bang the drum for Perry's public policy initiatives, no matter how costly or half-baked some of them might be. In other gubernatorial staff changes, Luis Saenz, the strategic brains behind Perry's re-election campaign, will start the new year as a lobbyist, the Statesman reports.