Texas considers ending judicial elections as Democrats gain ground


EB

Well-Known Member
Why am I not surprised?

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Texas considers ending judicial elections as Democrats gain ground
By Billy Corriher November 6, 2019

Voters in Houston, Texas, elected 19 black women to local judgeships last year. The new judges, all Democrats, have instituted wide-ranging reforms to the county's bail system. Voters also sent Democratic judges to the state appeals court.

A few months later, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — a former Texas Supreme Court justice — suggested that he wanted to change his state's system of choosing judges in partisan elections, citing concern about the courts' independence. Abbott has also appointed several judges that voters rejected last year to seats on higher courts.

This year Republican legislators introduced a bill, supported by Abbott, that would have replaced judicial elections with a system in which the governor appoints judges, subject to Senate confirmation. Every four years, voters would decide whether to keep the judges in office through a nonpartisan "retention" election.

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When I moved to Texas I wondered why they have PARTISAN elections for judges. Republicans had a stronghold at that time and they were fine with it. Now they are losing so they want to change it.
 
Those pictures of Black women being elected as judges shook people. It probably shook the governor too.

That crippled motherfucker

Max Cleland, a former aid to President Jimmy Carter, former U.S. Senator, and who lost three limbs in Vietnam, said in an interview that he learned what it was like to go through the back door because there it was hard to get through doors and more from corner to corner. I suspect that Greg Abbott did not learn those lessons.
 
Those pictures of Black women being elected as judges shook people. It probably shook the governor too.



Max Cleland, a former aid to President Jimmy Carter, former U.S. Senator, and who lost three limbs in Vietnam, said in an interview that he learned what it was like to go through the back door because there it was hard to get through doors and more from corner to corner. I suspect that Greg Abbott did not learn those lessons.
The law that allowed *bbot to benefit from his accident he voted to limit liability for those injured in similar accidents after him.
 
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I did say she was also a terrible candidate
She had no chance in Texas. Period. Any democrat short of Beto at this point has no chance at the governorship of Texas. And the female, gay, Hispanic candidate for Governor won the highest percentage of votes for a Democrat in Texas in 20+ years
 
Those pictures of Black women being elected as judges shook people. It probably shook the governor too.

I agree, I would even say it shook quite a few, but not most observers of electoral politics. Judicial elections in Texas, and particularly in Harris County are down ballot elections that typically benefit from straight ticket voting.

In Harris County democrats held the majority of judicial seats until 1994 or 1996. George W. Bush ran for governor against Ann Richards, beat her and took Harris County also. The straight ticket vote swept the Republican judicial candidates into office and a shift began and remained firmly in place until 2008.

In 2008 Barack Obama won Harris County and those that ran for judgeships as democrats were swept in as judges. Democrats were so use to losing judicial elections by that time many did not run leaving way too many republican judges in uncontested elections.

Fast forward to 2016, Bone Spurs loses the presidential election by 3 million votes but is declared the winner because of an antiquated electoral college system. With that said, he lost in Harris County, was and remains very unpopular with a large percentage of Harris County voters and drags the republican party down with him. As a result, in 2018, although it was an off year election but none the less a gubernatorial election in Texas, the incumbent governor did not have enough popularity to overcome Bone Spurs negatives with Harris County voters nor the noticeable shift that Harris County was strongly trending towards the democratic party.

I knew all of those sisters that ran were going to win and was upset enough brothers didn't run. It just seemed to me enough brothers should have at least filed to run and got their name on the ballot.
 
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