Several Texas lawmakers said the upcoming legislative session will likely be pushed into a special session next year if federal census results are delayed for long.

The comments came from state Reps. Four Price, R-Amarillo; Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth; Toni Rose, D-Dallas; and Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, during a conversation about the House agenda moderated by Cassandra Pollock, the Tribune’s state politics reporter.

Price, who went through redistricting in 2011, said that under any circumstances, the process of redrawing state political maps is difficult. Now, he said, it could be delayed because the U.S. Census Bureau has pushed back its deadlines for counting the population due to COVID-19.

“It's crazy to think that it's not contentious at some moments,” Price said. “Because inherently, when you're drawing maps that affect the state board of education, House and Senate districts and congressional districts, at some level … it can become controversial or personal to many of the members in both chambers.”

The representatives also talked about how the legislative session will be affected by the pandemic, elections and the presumptive new speaker.

“It's up to the 150 of us to come together for the betterment of Texas,” Goldman said. “We're going to have a $4 to $5 billion budget deficit that we have to balance the budget on. We have redistricting, of course, that we have to do. And then there are other major issues, in my opinion, like health and human services that we have to find some long-term solution on.”

With Dade Phelan likely to become the Texas House speaker, Price said Phelan will have the “incredibly difficult job” of placing members on committees and deciding who will chair them.

Canales said some of the members will need to energize their base for the next election and that’s why there will be at least one special session with “a lot of red meat to it.”

“The reality is that’s historically been the tool used,” Canales said. “And so, we'll be back. How many times? I don't know.”