There were other contested judicial primaries (although none in Travis County, where this blog is based). In the First Court, the incumbent Sam Nuchia lost in his party primary 57% to 43%. The Associated Press gives a little background on the race: ((You may notice this is one of the same articles I linked to in my post about coverage of the Texas Supreme Court races. ))

Republican voters also ousted the appellate judge who famously helped overturned the murder conviction of Andrea Yates, making Sam Nuchia the first incumbent to lose among the handful of judges facing statewide contests. (( Note: This was not of course a “statewide” contest, but looking at the statewide report is the most helpful way to find the aggregate results for the whole judicial district on the Secretary of State’s webpage. ))

Winning the Texas First Court of Appeals primary was Ed Hubbard, who commended Nuchia for his opinion in the Yates ruling in 2005 but criticized him for being too slow in his decision-making on the three-judge panel.

After Yates’ murder conviction was thrown out, a jury found her not guilty of reason by insanity for drowning her five children in a bathtub.

“That was the correct ruling in (the Yates) case,” Hubbard said. “But in getting cases decided in a timely basis, he never had the confidence of the bar.”

In other races:

Second Court (Fort Worth): Bill Meier won a three-way contest among Republicans to be the nominee for Place 2. The incumbent for Place 2 is Republican Dixon Holman, who has been forced to retire by Texas’s retirement age for judges.

Eighth Court (El Paso): Lupe Rivera defeated David Guaderrama for the Democratic nomination for Place 3. This is an election for an unexpired term. The incumbent is Justice Kenneth Carr, who was appointed by Governor Perry in October 2006.

Ninth Court (Beaumont): Republican incumbent Chief Justice Steve McKeithen defeated challenger Jay Wright by approximately 53% to 47%.

Fourteenth Court (Houston): Place 6 Republican incumbent Justice Bill Boyce defeated challenger Jim Holland by approximately 58% to 41%. If that name looks familiar to appellate lawyers elsewhere in the State, it should. Justice Boyce was appointed to the Fourteenth Court in December 2007 by Governor Perry after working as an appellate litigator at Fulbright & Jaworski. This election was for an unexpired, partial term.

Some of you may have noticed that there were other election contests yesterday, including some down-ballot elections in Texas.

There were two contested primaries for slots on the Texas Supreme Court, both on the Democratic side. According to the latest numbers from the Secretary of State’s website, the two winners appear to be Sam Houston (55.90% to 44.09%) and Linda Yanez (51.44% to 48.55%). (( Those are the statistics as of 10:30 this morning with 99.81% of precincts reporting. )) Both of those margins of victory stayed fairly constant between early voting and election-day results, unlike the top contest on the ballot. Approximately two million voters scrolled down to cast a vote in these primaries for Texas Supreme Court seats, which is (predictably) somewhat below the 2.85 million voters who cast a vote in the Democratic presidential primary.

There is a fleeting mention of these contests in the Houston Chronicle, the Statesman mentions Sam Houston’s victory, and the Associated Press has a story that briefly mentions the races. More links: The Galveston Daily News has a brief article, as does the Southeast Texas Record.

As the March 4, 2008 primary approaches, Texas newspapers are starting to weigh in on the Texas Supreme Court races.

This year, there are two contested primaries: the Democratic primary between Baltasar Cruz and Sam Houston (for Place 7) and the Democratic primary between Susan Criss and Linda Yañez (for Place 8).

• Houston Chronicle endorses Sam Houston and Linda Yañez

• Dallas Morning News endorses Sam Houston and Linda Yañez

• Fort Worth Star-Telegram endorses Sam Houston and Linda Yañez

• San Antonio Express-News endorses Sam Houston and Linda Yañez

• Austin American-Statesman endorses Sam Houston and Susan Criss

I plan to update this post if more newspapers release endorsements.

The Houston Chronicle has conducted audio interviews with Justice Linda Yanez of the Thirteenth Court and Judge Susan Criss of Galveston. Both are running for the Democratic nomination for Place 8 to challenge Justice Phil Johnson this November.

• “Linda Yanez discusses Supreme Court race” (2/4/2008). She discusses her background, how she came to run in a contested primary, why she is running for the Court, and the public view of the Court.

• “Susan Criss talks about the Texas Supreme Court” (2/6/2008). She talks about campaigning, the Court’s docket, the recent BP mandamus decision, and why she is running for the Court.

These interviews appear as part of a podcast series on the newspaper’s Texas Politics blog.

The Dallas Morning News has posted a voters guide covering Texas contests, including the Texas Supreme Court races. The questions cover some aspects of judicial philosophy, campaign finance, the Court’s docket, and other matters. The newspaper received answers from the three sitting members of the Court, as well as four of the challengers.

You can access the guide through this link. ((Unfortunately, I don’t see a way to link directly to the Texas Supreme Court-related portions of the guide. To reach that information, you can enter a Texas nine-digit ZIP code, select a primary ballot (or “show all”), and then page through to each position on the ballot.))

Although it is not representative of the other questions and answers, a member of the newspaper’s editorial board was so struck by one exchange that he posted this commentary about the experience.

In today’s decision in New York State Board of Elections v. Lopez Torres, available here, the United States Supreme Court reversed a Second Circuit decision that had invalidated the way New York selected judicial candidates for its trial court (known, in New York, as the “Supreme Court” because of its general jurisdiction).

The plaintiff was a judicial candidate who complained that she could not win the party’s nomination because of how New York structured its judicial-candidate selections — with party primaries a sort of indirect democracy, in which voters chose delegates who then chose a party nominee. The system also had a feature something like “super-delegates,” in which some delegates were picked by party bosses rather than primary voters. The plaintiff contended that this system deprived her of a fair shot to win the nomination over the wishes of the party bosses, who she contended were angry (among other reasons) because of her refusal to make patronage hires. The Supreme Court held, in essence, that there is no such constitutional right.

Although the majority opinion did not emphasize the fact that this happened to be a judicial election, two concurring opinions were written to do just that.

[Read more →]

There is an interesting interview with Judge Susan Criss, candidate for Place 8 on the Texas Supreme Court, over at the political blog Off the Kuff.

As speculated earlier, Judge Criss is emphasizing her trial-court experience as a distinguishing feature from her opponent in the Democratic primary, Justice Linda Yanez. She also suggests that she is the safer bet as a nominee because of lingering questions (originally raised by one of her supporters) over the sufficiency of Justice Yanez’s petition signatures.

An article in Monday’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram highlights some of the political groups organized to support women running for office and, along the way, mentions the Susan Criss – Linda Yanez primary battle for a Texas Supreme Court seat.

I decided to write a post about it because the article piqued my curiosity about the history of women on the Texas Supreme Court. During the year I served as a law clerk (1999-2000), three of the Justices were women. I didn’t appreciate at the time how dramatic a break that was with the past. Although women had an (unusual) early role on the Texas Supreme Court, there was a long period in which no women won election to the Court.

1925: A Brief Moment of (Reluctant) Progressiveness

In 1925, a famous all-woman special Texas Supreme Court convened to hear a single case involving the fraternal organization Woodmen of the World that — in what must have been a particularly strong old boys’ network — counted every member of the Court (and reputedly every other judge that the Governor initially tried to appoint as a temporary Justice) as a member. For a sense of perspective, this special court was gathered together just 15 years after the very first woman had been admitted to the Texas bar in 1910. (( This also happened to coincide with the 1924 election of Texas Governor M.A. “Ma” Ferguson, who was among the first women to be elected governor in the United States, sharing that honor with Wyoming’s Nellie Ross, who ran after her husband’s death in office. Texas’s “Ma” Ferguson won her election (and later election to a non-consecutive second term) after her husband — James “Pa” Ferguson — had been impeached in office for corruption. There’s at least some reason to believe that her campaign slogan “two governors for the price of one” might have had an unfortunate double meaning. The all-woman Texas Supreme Court was not appointed by Governor Ferguson, however, but instead by her predecessor in office, Governor Pat Neff. )) That woman, Hortense Sparks Ward, was appointed to serve as Chief Justice of this special court. (( Ward was also actively involved in the suffrage movement, culminating with the passage of a suffrage bill by the Texas Legislature in 1918. Soon after its passage, she became the first woman to register to vote in Harris County. )) The Texas Supreme Court at that time had three members, and the two other women appointed were also by necessity trailblazers, as among the few women in the state bar who had been licensed long enough to be eligible to serve.

In the 1980s, Governor Clements Appoints Two Women As Interim Replacements

It was another 57 years before a woman would serve as a regular member of the Texas Supreme Court. In June 1982, Governor William Clements appointed Ruby Kless Sondock to an interim seat on the Court. She served until the end of that year, choosing not to run for reelection to the Court. She later returned to the district bench in Harris County.

In February 1988, Governor Clements appointed Barbara Culver to an interim seat. She did run for reelection, but was defeated that November by Jack Hightower.

The Modern Era Begins As Four Women Win Election to the Texas Supreme Court in the 1990s

In 1992, Rose Spector became the first woman to win election to the Texas Supreme Court. She served a full term, ultimately losing her reelection bid in 1998 — to Justice Harriet O’Neill.

In 1994, Priscilla Owen won election to the Court and later won reelection in 2000. In 2005, she left the Court to serve on the Fifth Circuit.

In 1997, Deborah Hankinson was appointed by then-Governor Bush to the Court and won reelection in 1998 to the four years remaining in that unexpired term. She chose not to run for reelection in 2002 and instead returned to private practice.

Justice O’Neill won reelection in 2004. Her current term runs through 2010.