- Texas Supreme Court chief justice calls for higher judicial salaries, business courts.
Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht called on state lawmakers Wednesday to increase judicial salaries and create a new court system to handle disputes between businesses.
“I grow concerned that political divisions among us threaten the judicial independence essential to the rule of law,” Hecht, a Republican, said in the Texas Supreme Court courtroom in Austin. “The left and right, and leaders in both the executive and legislative branches, are in agreement: Judges are not independent, and shouldn’t be; they should take sides — my side.”
He urged judges against partisan decisions, saying the pressure to comply with politics “destroys the rule of law essential to justice for all.”
Both the Texas Supreme Court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest court for criminal matters in the state, are made up of all Republicans.
- Groups Ask Texas Courts to End Judge Shopping with New Rules.
A coalition of progressive groups is asking the four federal district courts in Texas to adopt rules to prevent the ongoing practice of judge shopping.
In a letter sent Monday night, the National Immigration Law Center and eight other organizations told the chief judges in the four Texas districts that litigants, led by state officials, are exploiting the courts’ case assignment rules to enjoin federal policies nationwide.
“While the undersigned organizations are frequently adverse to the parties who are presently engaged in judge shopping, the practice these organizations seek to curb is one that is almost universally condemned,” the coalition said.
- Why Texas judges have so much power right now.
In April 2021, Texas sued the US government over immigration policy. But they didn’t sue in Texas’s state capital, or in Washington, DC, or in any of the along federal courthouses along Texas’s border with Mexico. They filed the suit in a small Texas city called Victoria, far from any important government officials or immigration centers. And they did it there because they knew that if they did, a judge named Drew Tipton would be assigned to their case.
In the time since Joe Biden has become president, Texas has sued the federal government 31 times. That’s a lot, but what’s more striking is that eight of those lawsuits have been heard by Judge Tipton. The reason that’s weird is that normally, judges are supposed to be assigned to cases randomly. But in Texas, you can choose your judge. It’s called “judge shopping,” and it has made Texas judges some of the most powerful in the country.
It’s also not just the state of Texas getting in on the act. In 2022, a private group called the Alliance For Hippocratic Medicine filed a suit demanding that the FDA take mifepristone, a widely used abortion medication approved in 2000, off the market. And they filed the suit in Amarillo, Texas, where Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk hears 100 percent of the cases. Kacsmaryk had previously been a lawyer for right-wing causes before he was a judge, and he ruled accordingly, ordering that the FDA ban mifepristone throughout the US.
- Bills to create new Texas courts would likely reverse Democratic gains, restore GOP dominance.
Bills being debated in the Texas Legislature would create two new statewide courts, which supporters say would be more efficient and lead to fairer decisions but opponents deride as unnecessary, politically motivated and potentially unconstitutional.
Senate Bill 1045 would create a 15th state appeals court with jurisdiction specifically in cases brought by or against the state of Texas; agencies, departments or boards of the executive branch; or state universities, including any of these entities’ officers. It would have five justices, elected statewide.
Senate Bill 27, with its companion, House Bill 19, would create a new state district court to hear business cases involving transactions larger than $10 million. It would have seven judges appointed by the governor every two years, and appeals would be heard by the new appeals court.
Texas has never had a specialized business court, though 26 states have some form of one. The Legislature last created a new appeals court in 1967, when it added a second court to the Houston area to manage caseloads in the state’s most populous region.
SB 1045 passed the Senate at the end of March, 25-6, and now sits in the House judiciary committee. SB 27 and HB 19 — a priority for House Speaker Dade Phelan — have not yet passed their respective chambers.
