Texas

In Bexar County, the recent election has produced another wave of straight-ticket voting on judges. Texas is one of only three states in which voters can cast a straight-party ballot for all candidates, including judicial candidates. This year, Democrats won all but one of the races, but in 2010, a similar partisan...

In "Check One and the Accountability Is Done: The Harmful Impact of Straight-Ticket Voting on Judicial Elections," the authors argue that straight-ticket voting plays a pernicious role with respect to voter choice and “renders meaningful judicial accountability highly unlikely.” The authors question the legitimacy of...

A district court candidate involved in a Republican runoff has taken the rare step of rejecting the voluntary campaign spending limits enacted by the Judicial Campaign Fairness Act of 1995. The built-in incentive to follow the limits is that, once one candidate refuses to comply, the other candidates in the race are...

Incumbent Justice David Medina was defeated in the July 31 runoff for the Republican spot on the November ballot by challenger John Devine, a former trial court judge who has run for six political offices since 1994. Devine raised ethical concerns about Medina and touted his own anti-abortion activism in his...

An unpopular decision became an issue in a supreme court race . The high court weakened the Open Beaches Act in a 5-3 decision in April, and the challenger to incumbent Justice Nathan Hecht criticized him for siding with the majority. The only other member of the majority who is running for reelection is unopposed. A...

The content of fliers used in a trial court judge's reelection campaign raised ethical concerns, leading some to call for an inquiry by the state commission on judicial conduct. The fliers tout recent decisions in which the judge sided with oil drillers against the EPA and feature images of Rush Limbaugh. One of the...

Two of the three supreme court justices up for reelection face challengers in the Republican primary. One justice’s opponent is running to “expose the corrosive influence of big business on the court,” while the other justice’s opponents “want to restore integrity to the court.” The third justice up for reelection...

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has incorporated a Model Order Regarding E-Discovery In Patent Cases into its Local Rules as Appendix P. A working group of the Local Rules Advisory Committee reviewed the Model Order Regarding E-Discovery in Patent Cases that was presented by Federal Circuit...

The Task Force appointed by the Texas Supreme Court to recommend rules to promote “the prompt, efficient, and cost-effective resolution of civil actions” in response to H.B. 274 was unable to come to an agreement about whether the process should be mandatory for cases under $100,000 or merely voluntary. As a result,...

Governor Rick Perry has made more appointments to the supreme court than any other Texas governor. While he has been praised for diversifying the court, his appointees have been characterized as business-friendly and results-oriented. Since 2000, defendants such as oil companies, insurance firms, and other big...