More Corrections, and Two Friends Run against Good Justices

I tried to use the Texas Secretary of State's Election page to describe and handicap the appellate judge races a little. Not a good idea. It only reported my law school classmate Republican Houston Fourteenth Court of Appeals Justice Sharon McCally's

challenge to Texas Supreme Court Phil Johnson

since yesterday. Sharon is smart and nice and well-turned-out and can be tough. Suspected by some of being a secret proponent of plaintiffs, she's been remarkably even-handed as a judge.  She does not appear to have ever gotten an office from Governor Perry.
I don't know anything bad about Justice Johnson. He is a former president of the Lubbock County Bar Association, and appears to have been a white-shoe defense lawyer in civil cases. Governor Perry raised him up to be a Supreme from being the Chief Justice of the Seventh Court of Appeals in Amarillo.
Sharon's a strong campaigner and money-raiser, while at least as far as his SCOTX career goes, Johnson is a creature of the governor and will almost certainly have his support and his friends' support, so it's going to be a hard-fought race. And people don't talk about it much, but in a Texas state race it is some better to be from a big city than from an area that's more spread out. More campaign money in Houston than in Lubbock and Amarillo combined.

It also did not have my old friend Republican former State Representative Robert Talton's

bid to oust Chief Justice Nathan Hecht.

The winner of this contest will face perennial candidate El Paso 34th District Court judge Democrat William Moody also known as Bill Moody.

Hat tip to Don Cruse at the Supreme Court of Texas Blog. I guess there is no substitute for actually being on the ground.

Music Stops; All the Players Find New Seats

Nabors Corporate Services general counsel and former judge of Harris County's 129th civil District Court Grant Dorfman takes over Harris County's 334th civil District Court. Former presiding judge of the 334th Ken Wise-- what a great surname for a justice-- rises to Houston's 14th Court of Appeals. Wise takes the place of Jeff Brown, elevated to Texas's Supreme Court. Brown takes the seat of Nathan Hecht, who will now be the Chief Justice, while Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson leaves his seat to go earn some money with the law firm now to be called Alexander Dubose Jefferson and Townsend, which, as far as the judicial seats go, completes the cycle. People who can do the work of a Texas Supreme Court justice-- or the work of a justice on any Texas appellate court-- can make much more money in private practice than they can in working on a court. I don't know if it is practical to raise judicial salaries to a level such that they would be competitive with private sector pay. It is sad, though, to see the passage of good justices off the benches because of money. Former Chief Justice Phillips, former Justice Hankinson, former Fort Worth Justice David Keltner, and others too numerous to mention are sorely missed.

There are a lot of reasons not to treat appellate justices poorly. One of those reasons is the financial sacrifice that practically all of them make to serve.