In Texas, the lieutenant governor is president of the Senate, casts the deciding vote in the event of a legislative tie and ranks second in leadership only to the governor. Through the power to appoint Senate committee chairs and the discretionary right to direct bills to committees depending on desire to see a proposal debated or buried, the lieutenant governor shapes the Senate agenda. Republicans and Democrats alike should look for candidates who can work cooperatively with the diverse body to focus on the important issues facing our state, such as school finance reform and flood prevention. Early voting runs from Tuesday through Friday, March 2. Election Day is March 6.

ENDORSEMENTS: The Houston Chronicle editorial board backs these candidates...

Republican

Lieutenant governor: Scott Milder

If Texas is the independent lone star of the United States, then consider the Panhandle to be our state-level mini-Texas.

Those northern plains have long been home to storied conservative independence, as columnist Jay Leeson described it in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal last year.

Voters there bucked President Lyndon Johnson for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Gerald Ford for Ronald Reagan in 1976 - prescient bucking is how the political scientists describe it. Want to know the future of Texas politics? Look to the Panhandle.

It's a pattern that should have Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick concerned because some local politicians of the high plains aren't too pleased about the way he's running the state Senate.

After the special session, Republican state Rep. Ken King told the Canadian Record, his hometown paper, that Patrick ran the legislative body like a "dictatorship," punishing members who promoted their district's needs ahead of the lieutenant governor's personal agenda. Specifically, King meant Patrick's agenda of school vouchers and local property tax mandates.

Vouchers aren't just a D vs. R issue - they're also urban vs. rural. Private schools, where families would supposedly spend their vouchers, are about as rare on the wide-open prairie as the endangered black-footed ferret.

Over the past several months, that Panhandle spark has grown into a wildfire that's now spreading across the state. Longtime Republicans are understandably frustrated at how the Legislature has underfunded public schools and shifted the financial burden onto local taxpayers.

Just last week, Fort Worth got an earful from Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, a Republican, who told the party faithful that the state budget is responsible for higher property taxes.

Scott Milder has become the tip of the spear in this statewide effort to fight back against Patrick, and we endorse his run to unseat the incumbent as the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor. A former City Council member in Rockwall, a Dallas suburb, Milder, 50, is aligned with the schools, business interests and pastors who are hoping to restore the conservative values of local control and pro-growth that for decades sat at the core of Texas politics. It is a movement that wants to put an end to the potty-bill politics that have dominated our state Legislature under Patrick.

From El Paso to Texarkana, Brownsville to Canadian, local cities and counties are starting to stand together against a state government obsessed with the political minutiae that excites the partisan wings but does little to make our state a better place to live. A vote for Milder will be a vote to fix school funding and return Texas to normalcy. Patrick did not meet with the editorial board.

Democrat

Lieutenant governor: Mike Collier

In the Democratic primary for this important post, the Chronicle recommends Mike Collier, the more experienced, better qualified of the two candidates vying to face off against the Republican winner in the November general election.

A graduate of the University of Texas with a bachelor's degree and MBA, Collier wants to see more state money directed to public schools, arguing that overtaxed homeowners cannot afford to carry what ought to be the state's share of education funding. An accountant by training, Collier held high-level positions in auditing and finance during his career at a global accounting firm, giving weight to his proposal to close a corporate tax loophole as a means of raising revenue for public education and property tax relief.

Collier, 56, is well-versed in this region's need for storm surge protection and Harvey recovery, and he's ready to tap the state's substantial rainy day fund to pay for it. "Let's crack it open and stimulate recovery as fast as we can," he told the editorial board.

Collier supports expanding Medicaid to improve health for poor children, and he wants to improve care for rural Texans dealing with local hospital closures and few physicians wanting to practice outside large cities.

Collier's primary challenger is political novice Michael Cooper of Fort Worth.