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While the title may be outdated, it is a commission that is driving a Texas economy as it employs state of the art technology.

Both candidates have a depth of knowledge about the oil and gas industry. Dale Henry, the Democratic candidate, is a registered petroleum engineer and has worked in the industry for close to 60 years.

"We are not going to rubber stamp permits unless we know what the permit is going to get us into or out of," Henry said.

His opponent, Christie Craddick, grew up in West Texas, and has worked as an attorney specializing in the oil and gas industry.

"We have natural gas, we have oil in this state and that is what we ought to be using first and foremost, and if those other resources are economically feasible then they ought to be used as well," she said.

Henry worked on some of the first hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” rigs in the 1950s. Fracking is a controversial process of removing oil by using explosives to penetrate a rock formation.

"We have got to control the oil and gas industry from contaminating environmentally the one thing that all of us have got to have every day, many times a day," he said. "I am in this business of running to be a railroad commissioner because I do not want to see future generations not have water just because we haven't followed logical ways of taking care of this before we ruin the water."

Craddick also supports the process, but says the commission must make informed decisions before it adds additional regulations.

"I don't think we want to at the commission be the EPA either that does things without good facts or good information and is in the middle of peoples information without cause," Craddick said.

Early voting is already underway. Election Day is Nov. 6.