Vote of No
Confidence: The 2002 Texas Supreme Court Election
I. Introduction
The Texas judiciary’s confidence crisis is
beginning to feedback upon itself. It was million-dollar judicial elections
that created Texas’ judicial confidence crisis in the first place. Now
this crisis, in turn, is shaping the state’s judicial elections in profound
ways.
Perhaps the most telling sign of crisis lies
in the number of justices abandoning ship. In the last two years, four
justices resigned from the court before completing their terms or declined
to seek reelection. Justice Alberto Gonzales quit the court in late 2000
to become White House Counsel, followed by Justice Gregg Abbott, who has
resigned to run for Texas Attorney General. Justices Deborah Hankinson
and James Baker are not seeking reelection when their terms end this year.1
Justice Priscilla Owen, who has been nominated for the federal 5th Circuit
Court of Appeals, also will leave the court if she wins Senate confirmation
to that post. Even Chief Justice Phillips reportedly underwent considerable
soul searching before deciding to seek reelection this year in order to
lend continuity to a court undergoing enormous turnover.
Befitting an institution in crisis, there
are many extraordinary aspects of the 2002 Texas Supreme Court elections.
These include:
-
A mass exodus of justices puts a majority
of five of the court’s nine seats up for election;
-
Both major parties are running candidates for
all five seats (whereas Democrats fielded no candidates in 2000, when there
were three supreme races);2
-
Veteran incumbents will retain no more than two
of the five seats up for election;3
-
This year brought the first competitive primaries
since 1994,4 including one in which a
poorly funded primary challenger knocked out a well-funded incumbent;
-
A national GOP PAC took the unusual step of taking
sides in two high-court primary races in an apparent attempt to preserve
ethnic and racial diversity on the Republican Party ticket;
-
The U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down gag
rules that had prevented judicial candidates from campaigning on controversial
issues; and
-
To protest Texas’ judicial-selection system,
Chief Justice Tom Phillips recently pledged to limit his reelection spending
to the $20,000 that he already has raised.
Each aspect of this unusual election has been
influenced by the Texas judiciary’s confidence crisis—wherein judges undermine
public confidence in their rulings by taking campaign money from special
interests with cases before the courts.
1. Justice
Baker stepped down early, allowing Governor Perry to appoint someone to
run with an incumbent advantage: neophyte Justice Mike Schneider.
2.
“Democrats Plot Return To Texas Supreme Court,” Dallas Morning News, March
10, 2002.
3.
In July 2002 Governor Perry appointed neophyte incumbent Mike Schneider
to complete the last months of resigning Justice James Baker’s term.
4. When
Raul Gonzales defeated Rene Haas.
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