History. Not counted: how chairs were shared between parties is on record only once, in Vermont in 2025, where the Republican lieutenant governor named three Republican chairs.
Hunch. Vikki Goodwin wants to expand Medicaid, which Texas Republicans have blocked for years, so she has a reason to keep key chairs for her allies.
The committee chairs market resolves on the Texas Senate Journal: if the lieutenant governor still names the chairs when the first list of Senate committee chairs of the 2027 session comes out, YES if Republicans chair more than half of those committees and NO if half or fewer. If that power was taken or shared before the list, or there is no list by the end of 11 February 2027, the market is void, and CBS News and PBS NewsHour confirm the list.
We looked for cases where a US state election gave an important office to one party while the other party kept its majority in the legislature, and that majority then decided whether to take some of the official's powers before its first regular session ended. We found eight such times since 1985, four of them in North Carolina. Texas has none: every lieutenant governor after Bullock was a Republican. (TIME; CBS News)