Lt. Gov.-elect Vikki Goodwin taps bipartisan transition team as she prepares to lead a GOP-majority Senate

Lt. Gov.-elect Vikki Goodwin on Tuesday named a bipartisan cohort of current and former elected officials and aides to lead her transition team, as she prepares to take office in January after unseating GOP stalwart Dan Patrick.

The Austin Democrat’s team will be led by longtime Texas political operative Angela Hale, who will serve as executive director. Co-chairs include outgoing Democratic state Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie; former Democratic Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, the party’s 2014 nominee for lieutenant governor; and Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, also a former Democratic senator.

“I understand the immense responsibility of this position and I am ready to take it on,” Goodwin, a four-term state representative, said at her first Capitol press conference since being elected. “The voters sent a message on Tuesday evening: Texans want change and they want their elected leaders to be effective.”

Rounding out the leadership are former GOP Sens. Kel Seliger, a Patrick foe who departed the upper chamber in 2023 after nearly two decades, and Tommy Williams, a veteran of both chambers who also advised Gov. Greg Abbott on fiscal matters. Williams is one of at least eight registered lobbyists leading Goodwin’s transition — along with Hale and Van de Putte — making up a majority of the 14 names unveiled announced Tuesday.

Goodwin’s inclusion of Seliger and Williams is notable ahead of her role as the Texas Senate’s presiding officer. Despite losing control of the lieutenant governor’s office for the first time since 1999, Republicans will still have a majority in the upper chamber, controlling 19 of its 31 seats. The GOP majority could move to restrict Goodwin’s powers, most of which are granted by Senate rules.

Also on Goodwin’s transition team is Judd Messer, a former chief of staff to state Sen.-elect Trent Ashby when the Lufkin Republican served in the House. Other team members include two chiefs of staff to former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, Denise Davis and Jesse Ancira Jr.; and retired GOP Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Phillips.

In hiring Republicans, Goodwin is following a familiar strategy deployed by her GOP predecessors when the lieutenant governor’s office last changed party control. In 2002 former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst tapped Bruce Gibson, a former Democratic state representative and chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock. Similarly, Perry also retained some staffers who worked for Bullock when he became lieutenant governor in 1998.

Lobbyists are allowed to serve on a transition committee, but such appointments can attract criticism by creating the perception that their clients might garner influence over the fresh administration. Patrick himself announced on Monday that he is forming a consulting firm, Patrick Strategies, that will “advise clients on legislative and business development matters.”

Though Patrick will lead the firm after he departs office, he said he “will not serve as a lobbyist.”