Texas to lose clout in Washington?

Houston Chronicle:

From some Texans' point of view, Tuesday's election bought the Lone Star State a one-way ticket to the political wilderness.

A Democrat from Illinois won the presidency without Texas' help, potentially diminishing the state's leverage after it had provided two of the last three chief executives. Added to that, the state's voters reaffirmed the GOP's domination of their sizable congressional delegation — sending 20 Republicans and 12 Democrats to the House — while the Democrats strengthened their overall hold on Congress.

The upcoming departures of President Bush, the White House staff and several thousand presidential appointees are expected to cut dramatically the number of Texans working in the top echelons of government. Sensitivity to all-issues-Texas could ease. The White House and Cabinet's response to state-level crises could be slower.

"It's just going to be harder for Texas to look to Washington for a bailout next time," says Bob Stein, a Rice University political scientist.

Yet, some members of Texas' congressional delegation, veteran staffers and independent experts offer reassurances. Texas, says Rep. Chet Edwards, one of the delegation's leading Democrats, should be just fine.

"We don't have one 800-pound gorilla in our corner," says Edwards, D-Waco., a senior member of the powerful Appropriations Committee. "But we do have a lot of young, lean and mean Democrats in the Texas delegation who have important committee assignments, and (they) can make a real difference for our state."

Others insist that Texas' Republicans will continue to exercise leverage because of key committee assignments — three sit on the Appropriations Committee. They can draw on the power of the state's two GOP senators. And some time in the future, they say, Obama will need bipartisan cooperation on tough issues.

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I think there is another reason Texas will have clout in Washington--the Texas economy. It is the strongest in the nation now and has created around half of the new jobs in the last two years. While Obama is putting two people from Michigan on his economic team, that is like picking two players from the Washington Generals to coach the Harlem Globetrotters. Michigan has been doing everything wrong since it elected a Democrat governor who raised taxes during a time of recession in the state making things worse. Admittedly, Michigan is a victim of the Democrat energy policy which wants to drive up the price of energy in all forms. It was that policy that drove the price of gas up to $4 this year and put the auto industry in the tank.

The rest of the country should emulate Texas on energy policy and taxes so they can grow their own economy. They could create thousands of jobs developing energy in this country rather than transferring wealth to people that don't like us. Democrat schemes to rely on magic for energy in the future will be costly failures and their energy hatred policies will eventually hurt more than Michigan. Texas is well positioned to show the way and it will only become more influential as Obama's bad policies are put in place.