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Updated: Lieutenant governor-elect Patrick says liberals “picked wrong battleground”

Dan Patrick and Leticia Van de Putte, Texas Senate colleagues and rivals for lieutenant governor (AP pool photo, Sept. 29 KLRU debate)

Update at 9:45 p.m.: Dan Patrick said his election reaffirms the state’s conservative tilt.

“Texas voters sent a powerful message to the rest of the country – the liberal, Washington-style agenda my opponent so proudly boasted simply has no place in Texas,” he said in a written statement. “Tonight’s decisive victory proves they picked the wrong battleground.”

Van de Putte told supporters that she called Patrick and offered “sincere congratulations on a well-disciplined campaign.” Van de Putte, who didn’t have to give up her Senate seat to run statewide, added that she assured Patrick “I would continue in my public service.”

Update at 8:28 p.m.: Van de Putte has conceded, congratulating Patrick for “running a disciplined campaign.”

In a statement, she thanked supporters and said she looks “forward to continuing to serve my community and this great state.” See note below about how she retains her Texas Senate seat.

“This campaign and my service have always been about securing the future for the next generation, para mis hijos y nietos,” Van de Putte concluded.

Update at 8:16 p.m.: AP has called the race for Patrick.

Original item at 8:08 p.m.: Republican and tea party darling Dan Patrick established a solid lead over Democrat Leticia Van de Putte in Tuesday’s tally of the early vote for lieutenant governor.

With more than 2.1 million early votes counted, Patrick is leading Van de Putte with 56 percent to her 41 percent.

Playing rope-a-dope in the fall contest, Patrick avoided gaffes and lowered his public profile. This was after he ran a highly combative campaign to capture the GOP nomination earlier this year.

But while Patrick coasted through the general election, he didn’t tone down his staunchly conservative views.

Au contraire.

Seizing full advantage of the summer’s influx of unaccompanied children from Central America, the rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East and the arrival of Ebola in Dallas, Patrick hewed to his hard line on immigration and border security.

He raised the prospect of Islamic terrorists crossing the Texas-Mexico border in his fall TV ads.

In other ads and his single televised debate with Van de Putte, he also stood firm against abortion, under any circumstance; and for school voucher-like proposals to shake up public schools.

Van de Putte, not well-known beyond her San Antonio base, didn’t raise the big money that fellow state Sen. Wendy Davis did in the governor’s race.

But as Patrick’s senior colleague in the Texas Senate, Van de Putte soon could be in an interesting position: Last year, she drew a four-year Senate term and thus did not have to give up her seat to run for lieutenant governor. If she loses to Patrick, she can sit back and watch him preside — and offer critiques, if she chooses.

The great two-thirds rule debate has begun

Sen. John Whitmire, the dean of the Texas Senate (2008 AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

Update at 4:00 p.m.: Checked tape, made minor changes to Whitmire’s and Nelson’s quotes.

Original item at 11:29 a.m.: The Texas Senate has begun its expected debate over whether to abandon a rule that for many decades has protected partisan, geographic and racial-ethnic minorities.

At a briefing on taxes for new Senate budget writers Wednesday, the chamber’s longest-serving member, Houston Democrat John Whitmire, launched a wry if somewhat backhanded defense of the “two-thirds rule.”

It can protect from attack things highly valued by rural senators, such as an exemption of agricultural equipment from the sales tax, Whitmire said at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee.

The rule requires two-thirds of senators to agree before a bill can be taken up on the Senate floor.

Earlier this year, GOP lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick promised to reduce the influence of Democratic senators by weakening the rule and reducing the number of committees they chair. Patrick is a Houston senator.

On Wednesday, Whitmire interrupted a presentation by the comptroller’s office to discuss the sales-tax agricultural exemption.

He called it the “largest, broadest exemption we have.” Whitmire said urban tradesmen could view it as unfair, given they pay tax when they buy vehicles and equipment needed in their work. But the ag exemption has worked well, he said.

Then came the caveat.

“To preserve it, we need to make sure our rural members have a place at the table,” Whitmire said.

Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson (2009 AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, said the Legislature tightened administration of the ag exemption in recent years. Beneficiaries have to attest they are engaged in food and fiber production, he said.

Whitmire, though, said that in the next revenue crunch, it and all other exemptions could be reviewed. The state may again face “challenges to find sufficient revenue,” putting the ag exemption at risk, he warned.

“The rural members should be mindful that the Senate rules currently allow them to block any consideration of repealing that,” he said.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, interjected, “You talking about the two-thirds rule?”

Whitmire replied, “That would probably be the No. 1 thing that would come to my mind.”

A few minutes later, members of the panel began raising questions about the regressive effects of higher sales tax. Democrats mentioned Patrick’s proposal to decrease local school property taxes, perhaps by adding a penny or two to the state’s 6-1/4-cent sales tax.

Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, quickly cut them off, though.

She noted that higher sales tax is just one way to pay for property tax relief.

“Many of us would like to reduce property taxes,” Nelson said. “We’re going to look at a lot of different possibilities.”

People in hospital waiting room with Ebola patient weren’t overlooked, Janek says

State Sen. Royce West

People who spent time in a Dallas hospital waiting room with an Ebola-infected patient have been assessed for their risk of getting the disease, a top state official testified Tuesday.

They were not ignored, said Health and Human Services Commission chief Kyle Janek, responding to a Dallas lawmaker’s question.

Janek told a Senate panel that all people who were in waiting areas of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital’s emergency room during Thomas Eric Duncan’s initial visit on Sept. 25, and all paramedics and hospital personnel assisting him on his return to the hospital Sept. 28 were included in “contact tracing.” Such efforts, which rely heavily on interviews, help public health officials decide who could be at risk of infection and needs to be watched.

“Everyone on the ambulance and the providers and the ER patients from that night were all part of the contact list … categorized according to the risk at the time,” Janek said.

Duncan, 42, is the first person diagnosed with Ebola on American soil. In mid-September, he had contact with a friend suffering from the illness in his native Liberia. A few days later, he flew to Dallas. At about 10 p.m. on Sept. 25, a woman drove Duncan to the hospital’s emergency room on Walnut Hill Lane. He had a fever, headache and stomach pain. Although he disclosed being in Africa, hospital personnel sent him home sometime in the morning hours of Sept. 26. Two days later, when he returned by ambulance, he was critically ill. He remains so.

Texas social services czar Kyle Janek

Sen. Royce West, a Dallas Democrat who sits on the chamber’s Health and Human Services Committee, asked Janek if any of the 48 people being monitored by officials were in the waiting room with him.

In cases such as Duncan’s, West said he knows Ebola can’t be transmitted through the air.

He wanted to know, though, if “other patients who shared the waiting room” could be at risk.

“Was there an assessment done at Presbyterian in terms of the number of people that were in the waiting room?” West asked. “And was there any follow up as relates to those individuals in the waiting room?”

About 50 minutes into the hearing, Janek responded that the contact tracing covered everyone West was concerned about. They all were included on the initial contact list, which has been whittled to 48 people who require monitoring, Janek said.

Ten of them are considered at highest risk. None has shown any symptoms.

Texans enjoy strong protections against Ebola, Janek says

Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Kyle Janek (HHSC)

Texans enjoy strong public health protections and should not panic over the Ebola patient being treated at a Dallas hospital, state health and welfare czar Kyle Janek said Tuesday.

While hospitals and public health departments are vulnerable to human error, they have robust arrangements for preventing outbreaks, Janek told the Texas Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee.

“The people of the state of Texas should be confident of our ability to get our arms around this and other infectious disease,” he said. Janek cite the state’s experience at containing such illnesses as West Nile virus, hantavirus, tuberculosis and measles.

“Disease containment … is something we do every day,” he said.

Dallas pulmonologist Gary Weinstein, one of the doctors treating the Ebola-infected patient, said Thomas Eric Duncan is still battling for his life.

“He remains critically ill and we ask for your thoughts and prayers for Mr. Duncan and his family,” said Weinstein, the critical care chief at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas Hospital.

“He has needs that we have never seen before.”

After Presbyterian Dallas shares information with other health care providers about its experiences treating Duncan, “there will be lots of lessons learned,” Weinstein said.

Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Galveston, asked Weinstein to discuss Duncan’s first trip to the Dallas hospital. On that visit, the Liberian native was sent away, despite showing some Ebola-like symptoms and telling a hospital staffer he had traveled from Africa.

Weinstein said he couldn’t talk about initial treatment decisions.

“Events preceding his first admission are being thoroughly reviewed,” he said.

Janek, an anesthesiologist and former state lawmaker, stressed that Ebola can’t be spread unless an infected person is showing symptoms. It also can’t be spread through the air, he noted.

On Monday, Janek said he met with a visiting global health official who recently had been in Sierra Leone. It is one of three West African countries reeling from an Ebola outbreak.

“I had no compunction, zero, at shaking his hand,” Janek recalled.

Until infected people exhibit symptoms, “they are not at risk of spreading that virus to others — and that is only through direct contact … with bodily fluids,” he said.

Janek, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Perry, treaded carefully when former GOP Senate colleagues asked him about possible federal interventions.

Sen. Joan Huffman speaks to Senate colleagues during the final weekend of last year's session. (Louis DeLuca/Staff photographer)

Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, wondered if Americans would “feel a little safer” if the federal government temporarily halted issuing any travel visas to visitors from affected areas in West Africa.

“I’m worried about the future and the next person,” she said.

Janek emulated his boss, Perry, who has declined to endorse some fellow Republicans’ call for shutting down air travel to and from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Janek spoke of the complexity of global air travel.

“I realize I’m dodging a very specific question but that’s because I really don’t know” if a visa ban would enhance Texans’ safety, Janek said.

There are no direct flights by U.S. carriers from Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia. The vast majority of travelers from Africa to the U.S. fly through hub cities in Europe. Duncan flew from his native country to Brussels, where he boarded a flight to Washington Dulles International Airport, changed planes and continued on to Dallas.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, asked if thermal imaging machines should be set up at airports.

“It would catch people with temperatures, for whatever reason,” she explained.

Janek said he presumes federal aviation, health and security officials would have to make a decision on that. When Nelson asked if he will request more money in next year’s legislative session to buy high-tech equipment that might help in public health and safety crises, Janek demurred.

“The best surveillance for infectious disease is the low-tech stuff,” he said. “It’s the routine stuff, handwashing, making sure we use soap and water” and careful note-taking by doctors and nurses when they interview patients, he said.

Sen. Charles Schwertner, a Georgetown Republican and physician who heads the Senate panel, said a thorough review of what happened in Dallas will help the state assess its ability to prevent outbreaks of infectious disease.

Schwertner said Texas has a highly decentralized system of public health. While the set-up has the benefit of involving local officials, a recent Sunset Advisory Commission report showed that the state health department isn’t in close contact with local agencies it doesn’t fund. And fewer than half of the local departments received state funds last year.

Schwertner said lawmakers will study whether the state “could improve the chain of command.”

Report: Many Texans very vulnerable to “balance billing”

People walk to and from the emergency room area at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. (2011 photo by G.J. McCarthy/Staff photographer)

A new report says many Texans with private health coverage are susceptible to a nasty surprise after a hospital stay — bills for thousands of dollars.

Consumer protections against “balance billing” are inadequate, despite a new regulation last year by the Texas Department of Insurance, said the report by the center-left think tank the Center for Public Policy Priorities.

Most Texans with private insurance are in Preferred Provider Organization policies, or PPO plans, the study says. Patients save money if they obtain treatments from providers within a specified network — those that have reached agreement on reimbursements and signed contracts with the insurer. But at hospitals, many doctors and labs are not “in network,” even though the hospital itself may be.

What that means is that for elective surgery, a patient may have checked to make sure his or her hospital was in network, but while there may receive services from an out of network anesthesiologist, pathologist and radiologist. They “balance bill” the patient because the PPO won’t pay much of their charge.

The study suggests a more common scenario is balance billing after a medical crisis. In such instances, of course, a patient and his or her loved ones don’t have time to check on whether any providers — hospital, doctors, labs — are in network. But very often the group practices of emergency physicians that work at in-network hospitals don’t have a contract with the three biggest insurers in Texas, the study says. Fifty-six percent of Texas hospitals that contract with Humana, for instance, lack any, in-network emergency room physicians, the report says.

Ouch. That could lead to a big unpaid bill.

“Imagine going out to eat and receiving separate bills from the restaurant, host, waiter, cook, and busboy, some … willing to negotiate discounts or accept coupons; … others … not,” it says.

Leticia Van de Putte, the Democratic Party's nominee for lieutenant governor, spoke at her party's state convention in June. (Ron Jenkins/Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

On Monday, the Senate State Affairs Committee heard testimony about balance billing.

Trey Berndt of AARP-Texas recounted how a Dallas area man suffered a stroke and then “almost had another stroke when he got home.”

Berndt explained that the man received bills for thousands of dollars from his emergency room doc and the non-hospital employees who administered his CT scan and MRI — all of whom were out of network in his insurance plan.

In July 2013, new “PPO network adequacy” rules issued by the state insurance department took effect. But the report says many gaps remain in the state’s protection of consumers.

At 23 Texas hospitals that contract with the three biggest PPO plans — UnitedHealthcare, Humana and Blue Cross Blue Shield — there are no emergency room doctors who are in those plans’ networks, the Center for Public Policy Priorities said after reviewing the most recent data submitted to the department.

Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas was one of the 23 hospitals, the center’s report said. At all of them, insured patients who visit the ER may later get an unpleasant balance billing surprise, it warned.

Baylor Health Care System officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, a committee member and San Antonio Democrat who is running for lieutenant governor, said she’s not satisfied with current rules and laws.

“This isn’t working,” she said.

Van de Putte recalled how one provider listed on an insurance plan’s network had been dead two years. When she called to inform the insurer, an employee asked her how she knew the person was dead.

“Because I gave the eulogy,” she replied.

Nelson hailed as first woman to lead a Texas budget panel

Sen. Jane Nelson, shown with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst at a February Denton County GOP event. (Michael Ainsworth/Staff photographer)

Update at 4:03 p.m.: I’ve corrected original post to clarify that the Senate Finance Committee chief serves on, but is not co-chair, of the Legislative Budget Board. The lieutenant governor gets that plum assignment.

Original item at 2:27 p.m.:Sen. Jane Nelson on Tuesday became the first woman to preside over a budget-writing committee of the Texas Legislature.

The Senate Finance Committee, which writes a version of the two-year budget and vets all tax legislation, met to receive a briefing on state finances.

“Finance,” as it’s called, is decidedly male territory. While it has three new Republican members, all are men. As was true last session, males outnumber females, 12 to 3.

But the influential committee’s all-important gavel is now in a woman’s hand. By tradition, that will make Nelson the co-chairman of a House-Senate conference committee that at session’s end hashes out the budget’s final contours. And when the Legislature is not in session, she will serve on the Legislative Budget Board, a group of 10 key lawmakers. With the governor’s assent, it can shift money among line items.

Last week, Nelson joked with reporters about breaking a glass ceiling in state budget writing.

“We’re going to do it right!” she said.

At Tuesday’s hearing, two female senators, Democrat Sylvia Garcia of Houston and Republican Donna Campbell of New Braunfels, sat on the dais with the 13 members present — even though Garcia and Campbell aren’t members. Nelson had invited all senators to attend. They heard officials from the comptroller’s office and budget board present an overview of Texas’ fiscal condition. In a word, it’s good. If it were a nation, Texas would have the world’s 12th largest economy, ranking just behind Canada and ahead of Australia, said John Heleman of the comptroller’s office.

Nelson let out a whistle.

Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, right, shown at a hearing last month in South Texas about unaccompanied child migrants. (AP Photo/The Monitor, Gabe Hernandez)

Earlier, she let senators make opening remarks.

Garcia quickly noted the obvious — Nelson’s gender and her ascent to a budget chairmanship.

“I believe you are the first woman to do so,” Garcia said. “Viva la mujer!”

The Finance Committee is “a little light on women,” said Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who has served one session on the panel.

She said Nelson earned her chops, logging 22 years in the Senate after serving two terms on the state Board of Education.

“Girlfriend, you worked your way to get this position,” Huffman said. “All those years on state board, all those years on [the Senate] Health and Human Services [Committee,] trying to get the state to do the right thing.”

Democratic Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of Brownsville joined in the celebration — with a bit of ham.

“I must say you’re the best looking chair we’ve had since then, by far,” said Lucio, 68, noting that he has served on Finance since 1991.

He hastily added he’s sure Nelson also will be the panel’s hardest-working leader of modern times.

Forget polls: In this all-GOP affair, bigger Medicaid won’t do

State Rep. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe (2013 courtesy photo)

Although a poll last week showed that a plurality of Texans favor Medicaid expansion, don’t expect any of the four Republicans running in a special election for Texas Senate to salute that flag.

In fact, one of the four, Rep. Brandon Creighton, aired a cable TV ad on Tuesday that makes a virtue of his resistance last year to enlarging the Medicaid program for the poor.

“Brandon fought against Democrats and Republicans to stop the expansion of Medicaid under ObamaCare in Texas,” says the ad, which you can see below. “That’s why RedState.com said Brandon Creighton is a fighter in the mold of Ted Cruz,” says a narrator, referring to a conservative blogger’s post. It sort of simplified a tussle between Creighton, R-Conroe, and House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio. But that’s another story.

While many mainstream Republicans, including former Senate Finance Committee Chairman Tommy Williams of The Woodlands, wanted the state to take a look-see at a possible “Texas solution,” staunch conservatives considered that squishy and unacceptable. Under a Texas solution, the state would have insisted that federal officials let it use private insurance, charge co-pays and demand personal responsibility from the new adults gaining Medicaid cards.

According to the new poll, the broader public in Texas may have some appetite for trying to grab some of the additional money from the feds that the Affordable Care Act offers. The poll by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm in North Carolina, noted in its question that federal money was on the table before it asked:

“Do you think the Texas state government should accept this federal funding to expand Medicaid coverage, or not?”

By a 49-35 margin, respondents said Texas should. Sixteen percent were unsure.

While Democrats were 8-to-1 in favor, Republicans were only 2-to-1 against. Independents broke 48 percent in favor, 34 percent against.

And the only age cohort in which Medicaid expansion was losing was among those over 65. The poll of 559 registered voters was conducted April 10-13 and has a margin of error of 4.1 percent in either direction. Most of the interviews were conducted by phone, with 20 percent contacted by Internet to reach respondents who don’t have a land line telephone.

Creighton, left, drew notice in 2009 as House sponsor of a symbolic resolution re-affirming Texas' sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But he's not the only tea party favorite in a special Texas Senate election on May 10. (AP photo/Harry Cabluck)

Williams has resigned his southeast Texas Senate seat, and Gov. Rick Perry called a May 10 special election. Although it includes the former Democratic stronghold of Jefferson County (Beaumont), no Democrat filed. All four candidates are Republicans from Montgomery County in exurban Houston: Creighton, who was elected to the House in 2006; freshman Rep. Steve Toth of The Woodlands; former Sen. Michael Galloway, who served a term in the 1990s; and businessman Gordy Bunch, who sits on The Woodlands township board.

Both Toth and Creighton, who was chairman of the House Republican Caucus last year, have tea party credentials.

Creighton earned his spurs in the 2009 session with a state-sovereignty resolution. Almost simultaneously, he and Perry foreshadowed what a rising force the tea party would become.

Now, Creighton is linking his defense of states’ rights to the Medicaid expansion allowed under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

“We’re pushing back on the 10th Amendment, using the opening [Supreme Court Chief Justice] John Roberts left us, that is the ability to say ‘no’ to Medicaid expansion,” he told me Tuesday. Creighton said he’s also urging drug testing of entitlement program beneficiaries. His new 60-second radio ad has time to plug his sponsorship of a bill requiring drug screens and tests of unemployment compensation applicants.

The maps for the Legislature and U.S. House are drawn to amplify Republican strength in Texas. That may be why you won’t hear too much about Medicaid expansion in this year’s elections.

Frisco councilman Johnson pulls out of Texas Senate race

Frisco City Council member Scott Johnson (City of Frisco)

Frisco City Council member Scott Johnson has chosen not to seek a soon-to-be-vacated state Senate seat in Collin and Dallas counties.

Johnson said in a release Friday that it’s “not an optimum time in my life” to launch a campaign. He cited his and his wife’s four young children, an expanding business and his duties as a council member.

Still, he said, there’s a “need for an optimistic, conservative vision for the future.”

Johnson, who has served on the state Economic Development Corporation as an appointee of Gov. Rick Perry, would have had to take down state Rep. Van Taylor of Plano in the March 4 GOP primary.

As we reported here and here in August, Taylor’s been campaigning hard for the seat being vacated by Sen. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney.

Paxton is running for attorney general. Earlier this year, he garnered a two year Senate term, in a drawing among all senators for either two- or four-year terms. Former Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, once represented the district.

Williams accepts job as Aggies’ head of federal, state relations

Former state Sen. Tommy Williams, speaking to GOP women in Conroe last week. (AP Photo/Conroe Courier, Jason Fochtman)

Former state Sen. Tommy Williams, as expected, has taken a job as top lobbyist for his alma mater, Texas A&M.

Regents of the Texas A&M University System on Thursday approved Williams’ appointment as vice chancellor for federal and state relations. He begins the job Dec. 2.

In this year’s legislative session, Williams was the Senate’s top budget writer. In 2011, Williams, R-The Woodlands, pushed through a reorganization and expanded funding of the driver’s license bureaucracy, so that Texans have shorter waits as they obtain or renew their licenses.

Earlier this month, Williams told his staff he was going to resign, according to the online political news outlet Texas Tribune. Late last week, he did that rather suddenly. As Joshua Fechter of the San Antonio Express-News blogged, a Williams spokesman last week was tight-lipped about whether the senator was going to land a job in Aggieland. As we’ve noted in an earlier post, it was not at all clear that Williams could stay on as head of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. His fate was linked to the outcome of the March 5 GOP primary for lieutenant governor.

Gov. Rick Perry has not set the date for a special election to fill out the remainder of Williams’ term. It expires in 2016. Reps. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, and Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, have jumped in to the race to succeed Williams. Richard “Gordy” Bunch, founder and head of The Woodlands Financial Group, is considering the race. The district covers all or part of Chambers, Galveston, Harris, Jefferson, and Montgomery counties.

Williams says he’s leaving Senate

Sen. Tommy Williams, shown accepting an award from abused children's courtroom advocates last month, may become his alma mater Texas A&M's cheerleader in the Legislature. (AP Photo/ The Courier, Ana Ramirez)

Sen. Tommy Williams, the Senate’s chief budget writer, announced Thursday he’s leaving office to concentrate on his family and new career possibilities.

Williams, R-The Woodlands, didn’t announce a date when he’ll step down. He said it would be before the 2015 legislative session.

Earlier this year, in the once a decade aftermath of redistricting, Williams drew a four year term. He didn’t have to decide on his future by the candidate filing deadline in December, as half of senators do. They drew two year terms.

“Marsha and I are looking forward to concentrating on new opportunities and spending more time with our families and grandkids during this next chapter,” Williams said in a statement.

He was first elected to the Senate in 2002, after serving three terms in the House.

For several sessions, he has been a major player in budget wrangling. Heading into this year’s session, though, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst tapped Williams to be chairman of the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee. Williams thanked Dewhurst and praised his “strong, conservative leadership.”

Dewhurst returned the compliments.

“I’ll always recall the relentless persistence he showed in working with me and our senators in crafting a nuanced, conservative budget this year,” Dewhurst said.

The two-year budget increased spending by a rate less than inflation plus state population growth, the lieutenant governor noted. It also left more than $7 billion in the rainy day fund, even after assuming voters approve constitutional amendments on water projects and highways over the next 13 months.

Dewhurst offered no hint, though, about who will succeed Williams as Finance’s chief.

Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston, who is among three prominent Republicans running against Dewhurst for lieutenant governor, promptly issued a statement saying Williams’ exit “will leave a big hole in the leadership team in the Senate.” Patrick urged Dewhurst to swiftly name a replacment. Patrick suggested he tap Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, for the job.

Williams and Patrick clashed in this year’s session. Patrick, a Finance Committee member, voted against the budget. Williams then sought to have Patrick stripped of his Education Committee chairmanship, as we reported here. The move went nowhere. Williams considered but then rejected running for comptroller next year, as we also duly noted here.

After that decision, Williams’ future prospects of wielding Capitol clout looked somewhat iffy. He might remain Finance chairman. However, Dewhurst doesn’t have a lock on the lieutenant governor’s office, after his defeat by Ted Cruz in last year’s U.S. Senate race. So it was unclear whether Williams could remain the chamber’s budget czar. Two former senators, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, are also running against Dewhurst. They might have retained Williams; or, they might have tried to make their mark with someone else.

Williams, a certified public accountant, is president of Woodforest Financial Services. It bought out his former, freestanding financial services company, and is a division of Woodforest Bank, the bank that is in most Walmart stores.

In a post late Wednesday, Texas Tribune cited sources as saying the Texas A&M University System had approached Williams about working in its government relations shop.

Williams spokesman Gary Scharrer said Thursday afternoon that Williams “is a proud Aggie” and might jump at any such opportunity. However, Scharrer said, “There’s no formal, official offer from A&M or anyone else.”

Also, Williams was vague about when he’ll step down.

“A final decision will be made after meetings with Gov. Rick Perry and … Dewhurst, and will be based on an appropriate transition time for Southeast Texans, who make up Senate District 4,” he said.