Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN, Texas - It's only been a few weeks since Texas Democrats helped end the career of the first Republican speaker since 1871. Now many are upset with the second one.

The grousing began almost immediately after newly minted Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, announced his leadership team.

"He had a shorter honeymoon than Britney Spears," joked Matt Angle, a top Texas Democratic strategist.

Though far from universal, the complaints illustrate the limits of power sharing and the continued dominance of the Republican Party in Texas politics.

The GOP has won every presidential election here since 1980 - and every statewide election since 1998. There is no large and ethnically diverse state, nor even neighboring states, that has seen its Democratic Party sink so low and stay down for so long in the modern era.

In November, with Barack Obama driving up turnout in the urban centers and money pouring in from the late wealthy trial lawyer Fred Baron, Democrats seemed to be on the verge of winning back the Texas House. It didn't happen.

They fell two seats short, and Baron's sudden death from cancer last year cast a cloud over the Democrats' financial future. But they did achieve one goal: the Democrats effectively ended the reign of controversial Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, by promising to support anybody in any party except him.

Some aren't thrilled with what they got in return, even though Democrats now chair 16 of 34 committees, up from 12 under Craddick.

But Democratic critics say they didn't get many plum assignments, and some have been appointed as figure-heads of commmittees with solid GOP majorities. Key panels such as Calendars, which determines what bills are heard, and Appropriations, which controls how state money gets spent, remain firmly in Republican hands.

It's far too early in the legislative session to say what impact, or political future, Democrats will have. They still control almost half the seats in the House, so their votes will matter when the Legislature is slicing up the state's portion of federal stimulus package, overseeing environmental changes and considering changes to social policy and education.

But Ross Ramsey, editor of the political newsletter Texas Weekly, said nobody should be shocked that Straus used his power in a way that will help prop up his Republican base.

"If you're in control, there's no reason to give the control away," he said. "To think that they (Democrats) were going to control the House from the minority position - politics doesn't work like that."

To be sure, not all Democrats were upset, and not all Republicans were happy.

But many members felt slighted, and operatives are increasingly nervous about Democrats' prospects in 2010, a pivotal election year that will determine who gets to draw the new district boundaries for the Legislature and Texas members of the U.S. Congress.

"Disappointed," is how Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, the top House Democrat, described his reaction to Straus' committee assignments.

"Experience and proven ability appear to have taken a back seat to partisan goals," said Dunnam, a Straus backer who now chairs a special committee to oversee the state's portion of the federal stimulus package.

It was a far cry from the vision of bipartisanship and power-sharing that Democratic leaders were promising fellow members when they signed up with Straus.

Angle concluded that Straus' committee assignments reveal some of the same partisan goals as Craddick, only without the iron-fisted style and controversy.

"It appears that the crude Craddick meat-ax approach has been replaced with a more subtle, but just as partisan and harmful, Straus-scalpel approach which undermines fair Democratic participation in policy decisions," Angle said.

Rep. Harold Dutton, a Houston Democrat who did not support Straus, said Democratic leaders simply got suckered. He said they hated Craddick so much they were willing to cut any deal, even a bad one, to get him out - leaving Republicans with the plum assignments and Democrats wondering what hit them.

"They got the pig and everybody else got the oink," he said.

Straus and his allies say the gripes would blow over.

"I feel great about it," Straus said. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done. I tried to be fair and I think I was. I think most people perceived it that way."

Some Democrats agree. Rep. Jim McReynolds, D-Lufkin, said he couldn't stop "grinning ear to ear" after being tapped by Straus to chair the Corrections Committee, which oversees the state's vast prison industry.

"In my wildest dreams I never expected to be on the Corrections Committee. Now I'm chairing it," he said.