After Census officials have determined which states gained and lost population over the course of the last decade, congressional districts will be reallocated. States which grew in large numbers will add seats, while states which shrunk will lose them.

For some time, demographers have predicted that Texas will gain seats. The question now is how many.

Some experts -- like William Frey from the Brookings Institution -- now believe that refugees from Hurricane Katrina could tip the balance for the state:

Demographers predict Texas will add at least three new districts, and the evacuees who stayed after the 2005 storm – experts estimate between 50,000 and 100,000 did so – could provide the margin for a fourth seat.

That news makes this set of legislative races in Texas even more important. Republicans hold a slim one-seat majority in the House of Representatives, but if they retain control of the legislature, they'll have a significant advantage when it comes time to draw the new lines for the state's Congressional districts.

Democrats have an all too fresh reminder of how Republicans will approach redistricting if they control every lever of power. In 2003, the GOP -- led by Tom Delay -- forced through a controversial mid-decade plan that reduced Democratic Congressional seats in the state from 15 to 11.

We can't let them do that again. After this election, we must have a seat at the table.

In Texas, Scott Hochberg, a Democratic legislator from Houston has set into motion a potential revolution in public education.

The state spends hundreds millions of dollars outfitting Texas schoolchildren with new textbooks every two years, but forward-thinking policymakers like Hochberg are looking to the emerging market of ebooks to provide new educational resources and save taxpayers considerable amounts of money.

Hochberg wants to introduce open-source textbooks to the classroom. Under his proposal the state of Texas would own the content in each book and offer educators, professors, and vendors the ability to update and supplement the materials over time. Just before the last session of the legislature came to a close, Hochberg introduced a bill that would allow the Texas Education Agency to purchase open-source text books for public schools:

The quiet coup could help open the book market, dominated by few giant players, to an entirely new and unpredictable set of providers, from work-a-day teachers and professors to software giants.

In the meantime, the bill gives Texas universities a wide-open door to the schools market: They can approve the work of their own professors, provided they sign off on its accuracy and alignment with state curriculum standards. The law mandates that the State Board of Education “shall” put the university submissions on the state-approved list — it has no power to reject.

Ultimately, Hochberg is looking to pave the way for an entirely new approach to education in his state. If he succeeds, Texas will likely offer a model for policymakers everywhere.

Texas, where Democrats are just two seats away from recapturing the State House, is one of the biggest redistricting prizes of 2010. Consistent Democratic gains over the last few cycles (despite a brutally gerrymandered State House map) have fueled speculation that those last two seats will be the most difficult to capture, but a new study covered by Burnt Orange Report suggests Texas Democrats will continue to enjoy a target-rich environment in 2010:

The Quorum Report has some interesting numbers from Dana Chiodo. Typically a swing district nationally is a district that is between 47 to 53% Democrat. In Texas a swing District can be as high as 60% Republican according to Chiodo.

That, according to Quorum Report puts Linda Harper Brown, Dan Branch, Dwayne Bohac and Ken Legler directly at risk. It also gives a boost/advantage to incumbents to Kristi Thibaut and Diana Maldonado who both represent suburban areas.

With the House currently at 74 Democrats to 76 Republicans and and 60% Republican district is at risk for Texas Republicans, the House majority appears to be within our grasps. [sic]

Capturing the Texas House would break the Republican hold on the congressional redistricting process, and it would guarantee the Democrats at least one seat on the state’s Legislative Redistricting Board, which draws State House and Senate districts if the legislature and governor cannot agree on a redistricting plan.

Texas’ Republican House Speaker Joe Strause is one nervous politician these days. It’s bad enough he allowed a partisan voter-suppression bill to come to the floor, which turned into an embarrassing fiasco for the state GOP. Now the legislature won’t meet again until after the 2010 elections, and by then Speaker Strause might be out of a job:

Joe Straus has his work cut out for him. The Republican who in January ousted fellow Republican Tom Craddick as speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, with the help of most of the chamber’s 74 Democrats and a handful of Republicans, enjoys the job enough that he hopes to keep it.

Straus has listed 123 of the chamber’s 150 members that have signed pledge cards to back him for another term. They included 62 Republicans and 61 Democrats.

That probably will hold if the Republicans meet their goal to keep or increase their 76-74 margin over the Democrats in the 2010 elections. But if the Democrats gain two or more seats, most Democrats would be nervous about supporting a Republican when Democrats are in the majority.

The fact that we’ve pulled ourselves back to this point in the wake of a brutal Republican gerrymander in 2001 is a great testament to the will and determination of Texas Democrats, and in 2010 we have a great shot at retaking the House as part of a broader push for control of the state’s redistricting process:

The Senate’s 19-12 edge for Republicans over Democrats means Democrats can block the two-thirds vote usually needed to bring a bill to the Senate floor. So the Senate probably won’t pass redistricting bills either party thinks hurts them -- unless its presiding officer, Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, again bypasses Senate tradition and circumvents the two-thirds rule.

If the legislature fails to redistrict the House or Senate, or both, during the 2011 regular legislative session, the chore shifts to the Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB).

Its five members are the House speaker, lieutenant governor, attorney general, land commissioner and comptroller. All those jobs are currently held by Republicans.

All five seats on the Legislative Redistricting Board will be up for grabs in 2010. With a pickup of just 2 House seats, we can elect a Democratic House Speaker; the rest will be up to the statewide Democratic candidates, who can put the LRB under Democratic control by winning two of those four key races down ballot.

The Texas Observer has put together a list of the lawmakers who, "notably opposed—or bravely ­championed—the best interests of the good folk of Texas at the 81st Legislature."

Rep. Garnet Coleman, a DLCC Board Member, features prominently on the tally of those working for the peoples' interest:

For those who follow Texas politics, Garnet Coleman and the Children’s Health Insurance Program have become nearly synonymous. Perhaps no recent government program has benefited working families as much as CHIP, which provides low-cost coverage to families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but still can’t afford private insurance. And no lawmaker in the state has nurtured and protected the program since its inception in 1999 as fiercely as Coleman. This session, Coleman once again fought the good fight, sponsoring a bill to expand CHIP to 80,000 more Texas children. He pushed the bill through the House, only to see it die in the Senate. Coleman tried to resurrect the proposal right through the session’s final hours. He didn’t win this one. But Coleman will surely return in two years with another CHIP bill.

Rep. Coleman has also been a powerful advocate for higher education and rural health care.

As for those who the Observer describes as opposing the peoples' interest -- well, all five of those legislators are Republicans.

Is anyone surprised?

Two weeks ago, State House Republicans in Texas allowed hundreds of worthwhile bills to be derailed by their single-minded push to disenfranchise thousands of law-abiding voters. Not to be outdone, State Senate Republicans last week refused to reauthorize the Texas Departments of Transportation and Insurance – two of nearly 150 state agencies that literally cease to exist without legislative approval to continue operating.

Faced with such spectacular incompetence, Republican Gov. Perry remarked that he thought he “was watching an episode of ‘Lost,’” while Democratic Sen. Judith Zaffirini rightly noted that “the Republicans cannot govern.” Seeking to repair the damage caused by his erstwhile allies, Gov. Perry has called for a special session:

Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday that he will call a special legislative session to deal with agencies whose fate was left unclear by lawmakers when they adjourned last week. But he declined to say whether it will be this summer or sometime after the March primaries.

"We're in the process now of making the decision," Perry told reporters at a roundtable on national energy legislation.

(…)The governor added that the partisan meltdown over voter ID in the House near the end of the session caused "a number of really good pieces of legislation" to die.

Hopefully, legislative Republicans will use the session to finish the work they abandoned, instead of wasting more time with their pitched ideological battles. Regardless of whether that happens, taxpayers will foot the bill for the special session -– which is unfortunate, because if Republicans had been interested in doing the people’s business two weeks ago, this never would have happened.

A little-known fact about Texas government is that nearly 150 state agencies are subject to the Texas Sunset Act, which sets a firm date when those agencies will cease to exist – unless the legislature votes to reauthorize them. In theory, the Sunset Act forces politicians to justify their spending, while making it easier to abolish particularly wasteful agencies.

But yesterday in the State Senate, Republicans allowed the process to go horribly, horribly awry:

The Legislature’s 2009 session ended in a bitter meltdown late Monday as the Senate refused to vote on whether to keep two major state agencies alive, setting up the possibility of a special session within months to revive the transportation and insurance departments.

After refusing pleas from Senate Democrats to continue debate on the two agencies, Republicans pushed through a motion to adjourn the session on a party-line vote of 17-11.

(…)Because the Senate refused to approve a House measure extending the life of the insurance and transportation departments for two more years, both would be scheduled to cease operations by Sept. 1, 2010.

Apparently, even the first day of hurricane season failed to remind Republicans why a Gulf Coast state like Texas needs good roads and properly-regulated insurance. Three smaller agencies were also left to expire.

This debacle comes just days after Republican leaders on the House side allowed hundreds of bills to become collateral damage in their unsuccessful push for an unreasonable voter-ID bill. Even Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who can call a special session to reauthorize the agencies, was baffled by his Republican colleagues, explaining, "If I could tell you that I understood what happened last night, I would be an absolute genius. (…) I thought I was watching an episode of 'Lost.'"

Of course, as one Democratic Senator noted, Perry missed the most obvious explanation:

“The Republicans cannot govern,” said Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo. “What a sad day for Texas. What another sad day for the Texas Senate.”

Yesterday was a dramatic day in the Texas House, as Democrats stuck to their principles and used parliamentary rules to block a Republican-sponsored voter ID bill that would have disenfranchised thousands of law-abiding Texas citizens.

In order to force their bill through the closely-divided House, Republicans scheduled other votes on a series of important bills immediately after the voter ID bill – essentially holding these bills hostage against a midnight deadline to advance legislation. When Democrats blocked the voter ID bill, the bills waiting behind it couldn’t come up for a vote either.

Hundreds of bills thus became collateral damage from the Republican vote-suppression scheme, including:

• A bill guaranteeing health insurance for children in the state’s child support system;

• Funding for a new, regional windstorm insurance pool for the Gulf Coast;
• A package of healthcare quality and affordability bills to provide health insurance options for small businesses, fight childhood obesity, and promote best practices within the healthcare industry; and
• A measure to overrule Gov. Perry and accept $555 million in extra federal stimulus funds.

The stimulus bill actually was brought up in the final 15 minutes before midnight and could have passed, but Republican legislators prevented that vote in retribution for their failed voter ID bill.

Now, after weeks of refusing to schedule earlier votes on these and other important priorities, Republicans are trying to blame the Democrats for the failure of these bills, but Democratic Caucus Chair Jim Dunnam is having none of it:

"Someone who controls the agenda, and decides when we are going to hear bills, can't complain when they set the bills that they say are so important on the last few days," Dunnam said. "They’re the one s who set them on the last few days and now they are complaining that we’re not going to get to them.

(…)"Why wasn’t insurance reform on the house floor weeks ago? Why wasn’t the windstorm insurance bill on the floor weeks and weeks ago? Why’d we go home last week every day at 6 or 7 o'clock so that committees could go have dinner? And then turn around and say that [Democrats] are wasting time? Those were decisions that the Speaker made."

Republicans can try all they want to spin away their own failure, but in the end, the record is clear: Democrats spent the day defending the voting rights of thousands of law-abiding Texans, but when petulant Republicans didn’t get what they wanted, they responded by punishing Texas’ children, property owners, and laid-off workers.

On Monday, a unanimous Democratic Senate Caucus joined most State Senate Republicans in passing a landmark program to establish Texas as a world leader in solar energy production.

The $500 million incentive program, funded by a monthly utilities surcharge of $0.20 for residential customers, would provide tax rebates to homeowners and businesses -– as well as commercial energy producers -– who install solar cells on their property. Over five years, analysts expect the program could nearly double the entire solar energy production capacity of the United States.

"These new bills would bring [Texas] into the forefront of states that have solar incentives and possibly help make them a leading producer of solar electricity," said Glen Andersen, who tracks renewable energy for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The bill now moves to the State House for consideration.

Despite its history as a major oil producer, Texas has long been a leader in energy conservation and alternative energy development. Existing laws to incentivize wind energy have already made Texas the nation’s preeminent wind energy production state, generating 2.5 times more than the #2 state (Iowa) and making Texas the 6th biggest wind energy producer in the world. Earlier this decade, Texas also led the way in mandating tough energy-efficiency standards in new home construction.

The State Senate’s solar energy plan also uses state building codes to make solar power more accessible, requiring developers of large-scale subdivisions to offer solar-cell installation for home buyers.

Around the world, other countries have already demonstrated the effectiveness of using building codes to support alternative energies. In Spain, which in 2006 went even further than the Texas plan by requiring installation of solar cells on all new and renovated buildings, solar power production nearly tripled in 2008, firmly establishing Spain as the second-largest solar power producer in the world.

Texas legislators are hoping for similar success. If all goes well, their program will prove yet again that states like Texas can also lead the way on progressive priorities like clean energy.

Last week, Virginia Republicans rejected $125 million in extra federal stimulus money for the state unemployment system. Without the extra money, the system will go broke much sooner than it would have – probably by the end of the year – forcing state businesses to absorb a doubling of unemployment taxes (from $95 to $201 per worker per year). That’s a pretty steep price for Virginia businesses, one that reveals the embarrassing cost of the Republicans’ petty temper tantrum.

In Texas, a similar situation has played out, with much more interesting results.

Republican Governor Rick Perry, desperately trying to win back the right-wing base in his primary fight with Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, pledged to reject more than $550 million in stimulus funds for the Texas unemployment system.

Perry’s “reasoning” on the matter was the same as Virginia Republicans -– he opposed minor changes to the unemployment system that would have made it slightly -– and temporarily -– more generous.

But when Texas State Senators learned that their unemployment system would also be broke by October, they voted overwhelmingly to take the money.

Even with Democrats united behind the plan, Republican support was needed to pass the measure in the GOP-held Senate. After one more procedural vote in the Senate, the bill will move on to the house, where support is also strong. The 22-9 Senate vote (a unanimous Democratic caucus joined by 10 Republicans) was best summed up by Democrat Rodney Ellis:

Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, applauded Eltife for carrying the bill and called the governor's opposition "penny-wise and pound-foolish."

"I doubt most Texans think sending a half-billion of our tax dollars to other states while doing nothing to save the state's faltering unemployment trust fund is the best way to pull ourselves from this recession," he said.

Like in Virginia, failure to accept this money would cause enormous strain on Texas businesses, which would be hit with a special “‘deficit’ unemployment insurance tax.” To their credit, Texas Democrats and some Republicans saw the numbers and decided to show a little foresight and common sense.

Back in Virginia, Republicans are still as stubborn as ever.