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May 30th , 2024 Len’s Political Note #646 Texas Supreme Court
2024 General Election
Texas has two supreme courts. The Texas Supreme Court has jurisdiction over civil cases. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has jurisdiction over criminal cases. Justices are elected for 6 year terms. When there is a mid-term vacancy, the governor appoints a replacement, subject to approval of the state senate, to serve out the term. Elections are state wide.
All 18 members of the two courts are Republicans. Democrats keep waiting for a breakthrough. The possibility is within reach, but does not seem to materialize.
For those of you, like me, who do not follow Texas politics carefully, Ken Paxton, the Attorney General, has been controversial. That his views could properly be described as extremely right wing is besides the point.
- He was subject to a criminal indictment in 2015 which was settled before trial in 2024 by his paying $300,000 in restitution, providing some community service, and getting some legal ethics training.
- A 2016 SEC complaint was dismissed.
- An agreement to pay $3.3 million to fired whistleblowers was vitiated by Paxton’s failure to pay. That case is in the hands of the Public Integrity Section of the US Justice Department.
- The State Bar Association is examining complaints that would preclude him from practicing law.
These legal issues serve as background for Paxton’s 2023 impeachment by the Texas House and acquittal by the Texas Senate. Whether Paxton is organizing an effort to ensure political consequences for those who led the impeachment effort or not; Donald Trump and Ted Cruz seem to be helping.
The impeachment and its consequences serves as background for still another problem that arose for Ken Paxton. In 2021, The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the Texas Constitution’s Separation of Powers clause limited authority for criminal prosecution to district attorneys. The Attorney General, said the Court, did not have the authority to prosecute criminal cases and was limited to civil cases. Ken Paxton’s response to that decision appears to be an effort to change the Court’s mind by changing its membership. In the Republican primary three incumbent justices of the Court of Criminal Appeals were up for reelection. All three were defeated. For good measure, one of the three incumbent justices of the Supreme Court won his primary by a 50.4 – 49.6 margin.
Does this turmoil put Democrats in a position to finally elect some Democratic members of either or both of the two Texas supreme courts. Below is the lineup for the election in November – Democrats first, on the left. Republicans second, on the right.
Court of Criminal Appeals
Presiding Judge: Attorney Holly Taylor v. Attorney David Schenck
Place 7 Attorney Nancy Mulder v Attorney Gina Parker
Place 8 Attorney Chika Anylam v Attorney Lee Finlay
Texas Supreme Court
Place 2: County District Court Judge DaSean Jones v Inc Jimmy Blalock
Place 4 County District Court Judge Christine Vinh Weems v Inc John Devine
Place 6 Court of Appeals Judge Bonnie Goldstein v Justice Jacene Bland
Court of Criminal Appeals
For Presiding Judge: Holly Taylor
Holly Taylor is a graduate of Rice University. She has an MPA and a law degree from the University of Texas. She was a staff attorney for the Court of Criminal Appeals, the Rules Attorney for that Court, and has taught at the University of Texas law school. She is an Assistant Director for the Civil Rights Division in the Travis County (which includes Austin) District Attorney’s office. She supervises the Appeals Team, the Civil Rights Unit, and the unit that addresses wrongful convictions. In her other life, she was the lead singer in the band in which her future husband played.
She explains that she cannot have specific planks for her campaign because of ethics requirements, but that she is a lifelong Democrat whose values align with the Texas Democratic Party and whose ideals she shares.
Her Republican opponent is David Schenck, part of the Paxton faction. In the Republican primary, he ousted Incumbent Judge Sharon Keller by a 63-37 margin. Judge Schenck graduated from Baylor Law School. In private practice, he was the lead counsel to the Texas State Rifle Association and other state associations in the Heller case which found that DC gun regulations were unconstitutional. He has also represented the CATO Institute and the Christian Legal Society. He became Greg Abbott’s Deputy Attorney General in 2010 and was appointed to the District Court of Appeals in 2015.
Judge Schenck describes himself as a “strict conservative constructionist…an ethical, principled stalwart who is applauded for standing up against cronyism and any form of … ‘pay for play’ politics”. He further describes himself as “a Christian, a member of the Highland Park Methodist Church, husband and father of two children who attended Dallas Public Schools.”
DONATE TO HOLLY TAYLOR who will contribute to making a real change in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal
For Place 7: Nancy Mulder.
Nancy Mulder earned a BA from Indiana University and got her law degree in 1995 from St Mary’s. In private practice, she was a criminal defense attorney. In 2015, she became a judge in Texas District Court 6 in Dallas, presiding over felony cases that ranged from low level drug cases to felony murder. Her Spanish fluency was helpful with some defendants, in court sometimes, and may help in her effort to win election to the Court of Criminal Appeal. The ABA Journal reports a story about a mistake Nancy Mulder made. In April, 2024, she spoke about a defendant thinking the mic was off, requiring her recusal from the cause, (Some members of the US Supreme Court could learn about recusal from her.)
Her Republican opponent is Gina Parker. She defeated the incumbent by a 66-34 margin in the Republican primary using a slogan Make Justice Great Again. She thanked Trump and Paxton at her victory party and spoke about Texas’s hunger for constitutional conservative judges.
Gina Parker is a graduate of Baylor and Baylor’s law school. Her practice was general, with an emphasis on representing juveniles. She left the practice for business – Dental Creations, inc. She kept her hand in, assisting the business in meeting regulations, in obtaining patents, and working internationally. Now she is running for judge, she says, to “keep our communities safe, preserve the rule of law and ensure justice for victims.”
DONATE TO NANCY MULDER. Add a Democrat to Texas’s bench.
For Place 8: Chika Anyiam
Chika Anyiam is Nigerian-American, the first to become a judge in Texas, one of four Nigerian-Americans recognized by the Nairaland Forum to have become a judge in the United States. She received her legal training at the University of Calabar in Nigeria and practiced law in her home country for 7 years. She was elected to Dallas County District 7 Criminal Court in 2018 and reelected in 2022. In her 2018, campaign she was faced with an unusual accusation – that she was a Nigerian scammer.
Her Republican opponent is Lee Finlay. The third in the Ken Paxton trio, Finlay defeated the incumbent 54 – 46 in the primary. He thanks Donald Trump for endorsing him and notes his endorsement by Ken Paxton. In winning the primary, he overcame the disadvantage of having a dispute about his home mortgage made public enough so that he issued a video explaining his side of the argument. A former marine, trained as an EMT, he earned his law degree at the University of Texas. He practiced law in his own general practice in Plano.
DONATE TO CHIKA ANYIAM. Help change the character of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Texas Supreme Court
Place 2: County District Court Judge DeSean Jones
DaSean Jones is the son of an army veteran. When he went to Tuskegee University, he joined ROTC having earned a ROTC scholarship. He graduated in 2001, served as a Field Artillery Officer until 2008, and got a Master’s Degree in management while he was at it. In 2008, he enrolled in law school at Texas Southern and practiced law in his own firm from 2011 to 2018. He also served in the Judge Advocate Army reserve, which he continues to this day.
In 2018, he was elected a district judge in Harris County (Houston), a position in which he still serves. He was reelected in 2022, but it was complicated. He won by 449 votes and, as Republicans do these days, Tami Pierce challenged the results. Judge David Peeples of a neighboring county ordered a new election after upholding the defeat in 20 other Harris County elections where Republicans lost. Peeples said that 1,430 illegal votes were cast in the judicial election. Tami Pierce’s attorney said: “Voluminous, detailed evidence compiled by witness Steve Carlin and dozens of other volunteers revealed many problems with Harris County’s troubled November 22 election.” Judge Peeples found votes came from non-county residents, from people who showed invalid photo IDs, and from mailed ballots without the proper signatures. DaSean Jones’s attorney promised an appeal. This case shows us what 2024 will look like throughout the country as volunteers watch the polls and find irregularities – real or imagined.
DaSean Jones won the primary by a 60-40 margin to face incumbent Justice Jimmy Blalock. In 2023, during oral argument about a lawsuit brought by The Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of women who brought suit after being denied what may have been life saving abortions, Justice Jimmy Blalock rejected a suggestion by one of the other members of the court that the woman should have sued the doctor for refusing to provide the abortion. Justice Blalock said to the plaintiff’s attorney “This could potentially open the door far more widely that you’re acknowledging.”
DONATE TO DASEAN JONES Let’s see if we can elect one Democrat to the Texas Supreme Court – maybe three of them.
Place 4 County District Court Judge Christine Vinh Weems
Christine Vinh Weems was born in Miami to Vietnamese refugees. She graduated from the University of Texas and the South Texas College of Law. After practicing in Harris County (Houston), she took a position in New York City doing anti-trust and corporate tort work. She stayed for five years and returned to the practice of law in Houston. Married to a playwright, she has an avocation as an actress and a producer. She was unopposed in the Democratic primary for Place 4 on the Texas Supreme Court.
Christine Vinh Weems opponent, Incumbent Justice John Devine won a narrow 50.4 – 49.6 victory in the Republican primary. He is not a stranger to close elections. He defeated an incumbent Democratic district judge in Harris county (Houston) to begin his judicial career by a 50.5 to 49.5 margin.
John Devine came to Houston t work for Shell Oil after graduating from Ball State in Indiana. He became an anti-abortion activist in the 1980s, went to South Texas College of Law, and remains a religiously oriented activist as a judge. He told a newspaper that his judicial philosophy is “shaped by his religious beliefs and deeply conservative politics.”
His life and his Venezuelan born wife’s life are similarly affected. Parents of six children, his wife’s pregnancy for their seventh child was life threatening for her and the baby. They continued the pregnancy. She survived; the child died shortly after birth. Devine constantly battles his Republican colleagues who do not see the law or the constitution the way he does.
DONATE TO CHRISTINE VINH WEEMS. Christine Vinh Weems is probably the Democrats best possibility winning a seat on the Texas Supreme Court.
Place 6 Court of Appeals Judge Bonnie Lee Goldstein
Judge Bonnie Lee Goldstein was originally from Maryland. She attended a local community college then graduated from Hood College in Frederick, MD. She attended a legal assistant training program in a community college in Hawaii then returned home to get her law degree at George Washington University in 1990.
During the 1990s, she was admitted to practice in the federal district courts of northern, eastern, and western Texas as well as the US Supreme Court. Fluent in Spanish, she was appointed counsel to the Mexican Consulate in Houston, though the focus of her practice was in Dallas.
In 2020, she was elected to Place 3 of the 5th District Court of Appeals (Dallas) after having been a municipal court judge and a judge of the 44th Judicial District and after having practiced law in Dallas, both as part of a firm and as a sole practitioner. She earned the Democratic nomination for Place 6 of the Texas Supreme Court gaining 73% of the primary vote.
She opposes Inc Incumbent Jane Nenninger Bland. Bland is a graduate of the University of Texas where she got both a Bachelor’s Degree in business and her law degree. After a clerkship in the Fifth Circuit, she joined a Houston based law firm where she did trial and appellate work. She was appointed to a state district court by Governor GW Bush, to the Court of Appeals by Governor Rick Perry, and to the state Supreme Court by Governor Greg Abbott. In 2010, US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts presented her with the William H Rehnquist Award – an award to a state court judge who, in the opinion of the National Center of State Courts exemplifies judicial excellence, integrity, fairness, and professional ethics.
I suggest you DONATE TO BONNIE LEE GOLDSTEIN. Jane Bland has lost elections before – in Houston where there was a Democratic majority. We keep getting promised Texas will develop a Democratic majority. Maybe it will happen in 2024.
Other state supreme court elections
Recent Elections
Georgia: On May 21, Democrat and former Congressman, John Barrow lost his race for the Georgia Supreme Court
Retention Elections – Justices who favored anti-abortion legislation
Arizona: Reject retention for Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn Hackett King. See Len’s Political Note #641. Donate to Progress Arizona
Florida: Reject retention for Justices Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso. Donate to Yes on 4.
Other elections
North Carolina: Support Democratic Incumbent Allison Riggs in this 5-2 Republican Court. See Len’s Political Note #594 DONATE
Michigan: Support Democratic Incumbent Kyra Bolden and Professor Kimberly Thomas in this 4-3 Democratic Court
Ohio: Support Democratic Incumbents Michael Donnelly and Melody Stewart as well as Democratric Judge Lisa Forbes for this 4-3 Republican Court See Len’s Political Note #613 and Len’s Political Note #614 DONATE TO DONNELLY, TO DONATE TO STEWART, DONATE TO FORBES.
Alabama: Support Democratic Judge Greg Griffin Jr. for this 9-0 Republican court DONATE
Montana: Support ex magistrate Jerry Lynch and Judge Katherine Bidegaray for this 7 member Supreme Court. DONATE TO JERRY LYNCH, DONATE TO KATHERINE BIDEGARAY
Kentucky: Support Pamela Goodwine for this 7 member Supreme Court. DONATE
