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A majority of the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court is technically up for grabs in November—when voters will select five justices for this nine-member court. Yet the reality is not nearly as exciting as this suggests. Four of the five high-court incumbents up for election lacked primary opponents. In November these same four justices will face only nominal opposition from penniless Libertarians and a destitute independent. As a result the only Supreme-Court competition this year is over the seat now warmed by Justice Don Willett.
Faced with modestly funded primary- and general-election challenges, Willett has raised more than $1 million since August 2005. Raising well over twice the money that Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson has raised for his reelection campaign, Willett pocketed 44 cents out of every dollar raised by this court’s seven major-party candidates. Yet even the four incumbent justices with no financed opposition raised an average of more than $300,000 apiece. This ranged from Justice Nathan Hecht’s low of $173,729 to Chief Jefferson’s high of $418,397.
Willet spent more than $850,00 of his war chest to narrowly survive a remarkably strong primary challenge by ex-Justice Steven W. Smith, who is best known as the Hopwood litigator who overturned the University of Texas’ affirmative-action policies. Smith spent just $12,065, obtaining all of this money from campaign loans. Spending $1 for every $71 spent by his opponent, Smith slashed Willett’s primary victory down to 51 percent of the vote.
After he barely survived round one, Willett reported that less than $100,000 remained in his war chest at the end of June, when he prepared to meet a Democratic challenge by El Paso State District Court Judge William Moody. This sole Democratic candidate has raised just $68,582—almost all of it from his hometown. Moody, who had just $4,062 left in the bank at the end of June, has sought to parry his opponent’s financial advantage by hitting the campaign trail on foot. He has made good on most of his pledge to trek 1,000 miles across the state from El Paso to the Louisiana border.
The cash-on-hand totals reported by the Supreme candidates suggest that Justice Willett may not be the only incumbent justice in the race whom Steven Smith spooked. By the end of June three of the four incumbents without meaningful opposition still had most of the money that they raised salted away in the bank. The exception is Justice David Medina, who already has spent more than $300,000 in this election cycle—a huge expenditure for an incumbent running virtually unopposed.
Justice Medina may be haunted by the pale white ghost of the 2002 Republican Primary. That’s when poorly funded upstart Steven Smith unseated a well-funded incumbent. Analysts attributed this upset to bubba voters in the GOP primary recoiling from the ethic name of then-Justice Xavier Rodriguez. In light of this cautionary tale, Justice Medina appears to be running not so much against the penniless Libertarian Jerry Adkins as he is running against prejudices lurking within his own party. To do so, Justice Medina is trying to enlist the aid of the troops. One of the larger checks cut by his campaign was a $7,500 consulting payment in June for Hispanic get-out-the-vote work.
The most disturbing feature of this Supreme Court election, like its predecessors, is not how much money the candidates have raised or spent but who has footed these campaign bills. As a group, the current candidates for the Texas Supreme Court got a total of $1.2 million—51 percent of the grand total—from attorneys and law firms. The candidates’ dependence on lawyer money ranged from a low of 44 percent for Justice Willett to a high of 61 percent for Justice Medina. The second section of this report contains detailed donor profiles for each of the six Supreme Court candidates who received campaign contributions.
Leading contributors to high-court candidates include some of the court’s busiest litigators, including Vinson & Elkins ($95,000) and Fulbright & Jaworski ($50,412). Both the lawyers who give this money and the judges who take it continue to engage in this practice even though they know that it corrodes public confidence in the court’s rulings.
The table above breaks down total contributions to all high-court candidates by the industry or interest of the donor. Note that the attorney figures cited earlier are smaller than those listed under the “Lawyer & Lobbyists” category here because the Lawyers and Lobbyists category also includes contributions from lobbyists. Researchers identified an underlying industry or interest for 94 percent of the money that the high-court candidates received. It is not known how much of the remaining $136,850 that they received came from attorneys.
Outside the legal profession, high-court candidates draw a disproportionately high amount of their campaign funds from such dangerous and litigious industries as energy, construction and health care. Apart from law firms, the single largest donors to Supreme Court candidates were Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC ($75,000), HillCo PAC ($40,000), and the Texas Medical Association ($26,037). Although HillCo is a lobby firm, Houston homebuilder Bob Perry supplied 60 percent of its PAC money so far this cycle. Judicial candidates know that such donors have a vested interest in the court interpreting tort, labor and environmental laws in favor of businesses—even when such rulings come at the expense of consumers, workers or communities. Yet they cannot resist the influence that such money buys.
While the donors to this race’s Democratic financial underdog are a bit more economically diverse, they, too, pose conflicts. Judge Moody’s top donors include attorneys, business interests and labor unions. Texas judges will never inspire the level of confidence that the public deserves until they stop taking money from anyone with vested interests in their rulings.
Top Contributors to 2006 Supreme Court Candidates
Supreme
CandidatesContributor Employer/Business City Vinson & Elkins Law firm Houston Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR) Weak tort-law lobby Houston Locke Liddell & Sapp Law firm Houston Fulbright & Jaworski Law firm Houston Weil Gotshal & Manges Law firm Houston Haynes & Boone Law firm Dallas HillCo PAC Bob Perry’s lobby firm Austin Andrews Kurth Law firm Houston United Services Auto. Assoc. Insurer San Antonio Jackson Walker Law firm Dallas Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld Law firm Austin Thompson & Knight Law firm Dallas TX Medical Assoc. Physicians’ trade group Austin Baker Botts Law firm Houston Bracewell & Giuliani Law firm Houston McGinnis Lochridge & Kilgore Law firm Austin PSEL PAC Oil-rich Bass family Fort Worth Jenkens & Gilchrist Law firm Dallas Bickel & Brewer Law firm Dallas Charles C. Butt HEB Grocery San Antonio Hughes & Luce Law firm Dallas Harold Simmons Contran Corp. (nuclear waste) Dallas Union Pacific PAC Railroad Washington Good Government Fund Oil-rich Bass family Fort Worth Valero PAC Oil refining San Antonio Beirne Maynard & Parsons Law firm Houston James R. Leininger KCI hospital beds San Antonio Paul May Attorney McKinney Richard & Ginni Mithoff Mithoff & Jacks law firm Houston Bob & Doylene Perry Perry Homes Houston Jack W. Perry Winstead Sechrest law firm Sugar Land Susman Godfrey Law firm Houston Winstead Sechrest & Minick Law firm Dallas Richard W. Weekley Weekley Properties/TLR Houston Beck Redden & Secrest Law firm Houston Godwin Gruber Law firm Dallas Gibbs & Bruns Law firm Houston Cantey & Hanger Law firm Fort Worth Strasburger & Price Law firm Dallas H.B. Zachry Co. PAC Heavy construction San Antonio Thompson Coe Cousins & Irons Law firm Dallas
©Copyright Texans for Public Justice, Octoberber 2006
