California, which has the House’s largest delegation, has long held the most chairmanships in a modern Congress where Democrats have held the majority, and have had leadership of five major committees several times. In the 111th Congress, from 2009-10, Californians led five panels, and Nancy Pelosi held the speakership. Texas will have 25 Republicans in the House next year, the largest Republican delegation.

It’s very rare for a single state to have four or five committee chairmen without the Committee on Ethics (formerly known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct) or smaller committees composed of members of other panels, like the Joint Committee on the Library, being included. New York Democrats led four committees outside of Ethics in the 111th Congress. The ethics panel, which is evenly split among Republicans and Democrats, is unlike the other committees in that lawmakers sit in judgment of their colleagues, and isn’t always seen as a desirable assignment. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania is expected to lead that committee next year.

The six committees that will be run by Texans starting in January all have sway over large federal programs and commercial interests, and over the operation of the House itself. The Rules Committee is essentially an arm of the leadership; it determines the rules of debate for legislation on the House floor.

But the role of committees has shrunk in the past decade, with more crucial legislation being written by the leadership and sometimes bypassing the typical committee process of amendment, leaving committee leaders less powerful than they have been in the past.

“The Republicans having six committee chairs is certainly unprecedented, but it probably won’t mean that the Texas delegation is as powerful as it was when it had the majority leader and majority whip,” Sean M. Theriault, a professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas, wrote in an email, referring to the period between 1995 and 2003 when two Texans, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, served as the G.O.P.’s second- and third-ranking leaders in the House. “Yesterday’s chairs had tremendous amount of discretion to enact their will (or, perhaps even more powerfully, stop legislation they opposed).”

Should another Texan seek a leadership post, however, the fact that the state holds multiple committee chairmanships and the largest Republican delegation wouldn’t hurt.