Time to Reform Judicial Selection

Time to Reform Judicial Selection

Texas is the largest of nine states that elects its judges through partisan political campaigns. Campaign laws allow the state’s judges to raise campaign funds from the very parties that appear in their courtrooms. Allowing judges to solicit campaign money from the lawyers, law firms and parties in their courtrooms undermines public confidence in the independence of the judiciary.

A 1997 Harte-Hanks Texas poll found that:

72% of respondents believe judges decisions in some cases are influenced by political pressure from campaign contributors; and

62% believed judicial elections should be non-partisan.

“A judge who owes a seat to contributions from politicians, labor leaders, corporate executives or lawyers suffers from a tarnished independence.”
- American Bar Association President Jerome Shestack

“The way Texas elects partisan judges, and allows those who practice before them to supply the campaign money, will always fuel suspicion that justice here is for sale.”
-Texas Chief Justice Thomas R. Phillips

Recent Reforms Have Failed:

The Judicial Campaign Fairness Act of 1995 established contribution limits that are indulgent to the point of meaninglessness. Under current law, judges can raise up to $90,000 per law firm and $900,000 from PACs in a single election cycle.

The seven Texas Supreme Court justices elected in 1994 and 1996 raised $3.7 million (40 percent of all their money) from lawyers, law firms and the parties who had cases in their courtrooms.

Of the 530 opinions the Supreme Court issued during that period, 60 percent (322) involved at least one campaign contributor to one or more of the sitting justices.

Fundamental Reform Is Necessary:

Judges must be prohibited from soliciting and accepting campaign contributions from the lawyers and parties that appear before them.

The legislature should present Texas voters with a new method of selecting all state appellate judges. This method should provide for gubernato rial appointment followed by Senate confirmation.

Texans for Public Justice

609 W 18th, Ste E, Austin, 78701

p:512-472-9770

tpj@tpj.org