The Texas bill to ban the straight-ticket device, HB 433, has been re-numbered to HB 25. House bills with numbers of 40 or lower indicate that the leadership of the House considers such bills a priority. Thanks to Mark Miller and Jim Riley for this news.
I was not aware of this, I had seen where Speaker Strauss had endorsed the elimination of straight ticket voting for all offices, after the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in his State of the Judiciary address to the Legislature had urged, at minimum, elimination of the straight-ticket devices for judicial elections.
Technically, HB 433 still exists.
HB 20 through HB 26 were filed during the past week. It appears that HB 41 is the first regularly filed bill, having been pre-filed last November.