Capital Highlights A summary of the week's significant events in Austin
Inspectors told to focus on metal bridge component
Ed Sterling Texas Press Association

Ed Sterling is director of member services for the Texas Press Association in Austin.

A USTIN - Last summer, the Interstate 35 West Mississippi

River bridge collapse

in Minneapolis woke people up.

Inspection crews fanned out across each state and assessed the condition of bridges under their care.

The Texas Department of Transportation ran bridge safety inspections and declared Texas bridges safe.

Now, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters has told Texas and the other states to address how changes in bridge weight, capacity and bridge conditions might affect "gusset plates." Gusset plates and girders hold up certain bridges. They work like a hub and spokes. Peters' directive suggests inspectors should take a closer look at gusset plates when calculating load capacity on the nation's 13,000 steel truss bridges. Texas has more than 300 of them.

According to TxDOT, there are only six bridges in Texas like the one that collapsed in Minnesota and all of them have either been inspected within the last year or are scheduled for replacement.

Guv calls for nomination to hall

Gov. Rick Perry is calling for nominations of outstanding women for the Texas Women's Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame, coordinated by the Governor's Commission for Women, includes among its many inductees Lady Bird Johnson, educator and lawmaker Barbara Jordan, Gov. Ann Richards, rancher Hallie Stillwell, Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper reporter Caro Crawford Brown, musician Lydia Mendoza, and newspaper publisher and presidential cabinet member Oveta Culp Hobby.

This year's categories for nominees are leadership, historic preservation, health, physical fitness, education and performing arts.

An independent panel of judges will review the nominations and the governor will induct the women the panel recommends into the 2008 Hall of Fame at an awards ceremony in the fall.

Nominees must be native or current Texas residents, their noted achievement must have significant ties to Texas, and they must have been involved in the noted achievement during the past 12 months.

In related news, a 1986 Texas Women's Hall of Fame inductee, former State Rep. Wilhelmina Delco of Austin, has been named by House Speaker Tom Craddick as a member of the Texas Ethics Commission. Her term, effective immediately, will end in November 2011.

AG withdraws benefits opinions

Attorney General Greg Abbott withdrew two letter opinions released in 2006, disqualifying certain veterans from receiving college tuition exemptions available under the Hazlewood Act.

The San Antonio-based Mexican American Legal Defense and Education

Fund filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of six Gulf War veterans who are now U.S. citizens.

The veterans were denied the Hazlewood exemption because they were legal residents but not U.S. citizens at the time they entered the military.

After Abbott vacated the opinions, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board adopted temporary rules to provide that qualified veterans are eligible for the Hazlewood exemption whether they were U.S. citizens or legal resident immigrants at the time they entered the military.

Student testing is rescheduled

Education Commissioner Robert Scott moved back the state-testing calendar so Texas school students will not take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exams on the March 4 statewide primary election day.

"By moving testing dates, we can preserve schools as polling places and maintain a calm, quiet, secure testing environment for our students," Scott said.

Tests scheduled for March 4-6 will be given one day later than originally scheduled. About 2.6 million students will be affected.

Texas' role in primaries may rise

Even though the Lone Star State's primary comes a month after the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries or caucuses in 24 other states, a general sense of the importance of Texas in the presidential primaries seems to be improving.

This may be attributed to the fact that no clear frontrunner has emerged for the Democrats or the Republicans.

Texas, second in population among the states, has 34 electoral votes, and may emerge as a key to victory for any of the campaigns.