What Your Senators Will Be Up To

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst announced committee assignments for the Senate last Friday. The senator who represents most of Travis County, Democrat Kirk Watson, picked up five: Business & Commerce, Nominations, Higher Education, Economic Develop­ment, and Transportation & Homeland Security (vice chair), the latter an important one for our traffic-plagued region. Travis' other senator, San Antonio-based Republican Jeff Wentworth, was assigned to six committees: Administration, Higher Education, the Select Committee on Redis­trict­ing, Intergovern­­mental Relations, Transportation & Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs & Military Installa­tions (vice chair). That redistricting assignment is key for Wentworth, who has long advocated taking congressional redistricting away from the Lege and putting it in the hands of a bipartisan commission; plus, the I-35 corridor's growth will make it an important battleground in redistricting and deciding where Texas' four new congressional seats will be located.