By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Former Army officer Brian Birdwell has been picked by party activists to fill an opening in the general election for a Republican state Senate candidate after key GOP forces determined that he'd be able to withstand a possible legal challenge over his residence eligibility.

But Birdwell had to wait a full month after a victory in a special election before getting the official nod Friday as the Senate District 22 nominee while Republicans investigated assertions that he wasn't legally qualified to seek the position because he hadn't lived in Texas for all of the past five years.

While Birdwell claimed the SD 22 seat when he defeated former lawmaker David Sibey with 58 percent of the vote in a special election runoff in June, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst wanted to make sure that the Senate's newest member wouldn't be vulnerable to a lawsuit by Democrats on the residency question if he took predecessor Kip Averitt's place on the fall ballot.

Before the GOP's county chairs in SD 22 voted on a replacement nominee for Averitt, who'd won the March primary election after cancelling his campaign due to health problems, the Texans for Lawsuit Reform at Dewhurst's request asked one of its lawyers to research the Birdwell residency question so party officials could feel assured that his case was sound.

After TLR Counsel Michael Hull looked into the arguments and evidence that had emerged during the special election, the tort reform group decided that Birdwell was indeed qualified to serve in the Senate under the constitutional residency requirements. TLR, which contributed $50,000 to Sibley during the primary, has endorsed Birdwell and donated at least $5,000 to his campaign since he won the June 22 runoff.

Sibley and Averitt had questioned Birdwell's eligibility based in part on the fact that he voted in Virginia as recently as 2006 and obtained a resident fishing license there. Birdwell retired from the military as a lieutenant colonel in 2004 and moved back to Texas three years later. But Birdwell has contended that he never gave up his residency in Texas even though he was out of state being treated for life-threatening injuries suffered during the terrorist attack on the Pentagon nine years ago.

Birdwell, who won a term in the special election that expires in January, had the support of all of the eight county Republican chairs who were on hand at a downtown Waco hotel for the vote on the November nominee in SD 22. Two county chairs didn't attend the meeting. But new state GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri of Houston was on hand for the vote - and according to the Waco Tribune-Herald - he opened the meeting to the press after the activists were initially hesitant about doing so.

Averitt's decision to drop out of the race after winning the primary has also opened the door for Democrats to pick a fall nominee for a contest that none had entered when it appeared that he'd be seeking re-election as the incumbent. The list of Democrats whose names have been floated as possible SD 22 contenders includes former Texas House member Lyndon Olson Jr. and his brother, Waco attorney Charles Olson. Lyndon Olson, a state representative in the 1970s, served as the U.S. ambassador to Sweden for three years under Bill Clinton. Charles Olson is a former Waco school board member.

Waco attorney John Mabry, who's currently competing against Republican State Rep. Charles "Doc" Anderson for the House District 56 seat in November, has been mentioned as a possible Senate contender. Mabry served one term in the lower chamber before losing to Anderson in 2004.

State Rep. Jim Dunnam, the leader of the House Democratic Caucus, has also been mentioned as a possible Senate candidate as well. But Dunnam would have to give up his House seat to run for the Senate in a race that will be tough for any Democrat to win in a heavily Republican district.

The GOP has held the SD 22 since Sibley was elected in a special election in 1991 to replace Democrat Chet Edwards after he won a seat in Congress. Edwards claimed the SD 22 seat initially in 1982 a year after it was created during the redistricting process.