From the Texas Tribune: Texas Supreme Court to take up same-sex marriage case

Traditionalists in the state are finding ways to push back against Obergerfells v Hodges.

- Click here for the article.

Almost two years after same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide, Texas Republicans are still fighting the ruling — and they’re getting another day in court.

The Texas Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on Wednesday in a Houston case challenging the city’s benefits policy for married same-sex couples. Though such policies have been in place since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, Texas conservatives are betting the Houston case opens up a path to relitigate the high court’s decision.

“This particular opinion will go to the U.S. Supreme Court and is a potential vehicle for overturning Obergefell given the changing composition of the court,” said Jared Woodfill, one of the lawyers leading the lawsuit filed against Houston on behalf of two taxpayers, and a prominent conservative activist in the city. “Ultimately, I would like to see Obergefell overturned.”

At the center of the Houston case is whether Obergefell, which legalized same-sex marriage across the country, requires the city and other governmental agencies to extend taxpayer-subsidized benefits to same-sex spouses of government employees.

In Obergefell, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 ruled that bans on marriages between couples of the same sex are unconstitutional and that states must recognize same-sex marriage as legal. Following that ruling, public employers in the state quickly extended benefits for same-sex spouses of public employees.

But opponents argue that interpretation was far too broad.

“Obergefell may require states to license and recognize same-sex marriages, but that does not require states to give taxpayer subsidies to same-sex couples — any more than Roe v. Wade requires states to subsidize abortions or abortion providers,” lawyers challenging the Houston policy wrote in a filing with the Texas Supreme Court.

They argue that the right to marry does not “entail any particular package of tax benefits, employee fringe benefits or testimonial privileges.” (In a separate case against the state’s now-defunct ban on same-sex marriage, the Texas Attorney General’s office actually argued that marriage is a right that comes with benefits the state is entitled to control.)

A spokeswoman for Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner declined to comment on the upcoming hearing, saying the city prefers “to offer our arguments in the court and our filings.”

Update: Treat same-sex couples the same as others, Texas Supreme Court told.

From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: Oh, You Thought Your State Government Worked For You?

Negative fallout from a recent Texas Supreme Court decision limiting access to public data.

- Click here for the article.

A lot can happen when you're distracted by presidential politics. The past week offered a few relatively local reminders of why politics matters.

Texas state government can shut down your access to public information — simply by hiring private businesses to do government work that would otherwise be subject to public scrutiny.

What’s supposed to be the virtuous circle of civics — you elect lawmakers, they get to work, you re-evaluate them on that work and then vote again — has been corrupted. It competes with the commercial circle of civics, where elections are paid for by business interests that are rewarded with state contracts that, incidentally, are protected from public scrutiny because of laws passed by those same business-backed officeholders.

You can blame the Texas Supreme Court, if you’d like, for the ruling that exposed what some call a “monstrous loophole” in the state’s public information laws. Or you can blame the lawmakers who wrote those laws.

Either way, as The Texas Tribune’s Jim Malewitz reported, you can’t find out what it cost McAllen taxpayers to hire Enrique Iglesias to sing in a parade, or how many ride-hailing permits Uber got from the city of Houston.

That’s before you even get to the really big contracts that replace entire departments of state government — in child support, health and human services programs, state prisons and data services.It might be your money, but the state doesn’t think it’s any of your business.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Supreme Court Upholds School Funding System

A repost from a few months back - a look at Texas' top civil court, and education policy in Texas, and the meaning of the Texas Constitution.

- Click here for the article.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday issued a ruling upholding the state’s public school funding system as constitutional, while also urging state lawmakers to implement "transformational, top-to-bottom reforms that amount to more than Band-Aid on top of Band-Aid."

But without a court order directing the Legislature to fix specific provisions in the system, school groups worry that lawmakers will either do nothing or something outside the box.

“Our Byzantine school funding ‘system’ is undeniably imperfect, with immense room for improvement. But it satisfies minimum constitutional requirements,” Justice Don Willettwrote in the court’s 100-page opinion, which asserts that the court’s “lenient standard of review in this policy-laden area counsels modesty.”

There were no dissenting opinions; Justices Eva Guzman and Jeff Boyd delivered concurring ones.

"Good enough now ... does not mean that the system is good or that it will continue to be enough," Guzman wrote. "Shortfalls in both resources and performance persist in innumerable respects, and a perilously large number of students is in danger of falling further behind."

Friday’s ruling is the second time the state’s highest civil court has upheld the state’s school finance system. Since the 1980s, school districts have repeatedly sued the state in an attempt to increase public education funding, and have often prevailed. The latest case, brought by more than two-thirds of Texas school districts, is the seventh time such a case has reached the state Supreme Court.

For background:
- Edgewood v. Kirby.
- Rodriquez v. SAISD.

From the New Yorker: THE NATHAN HECHT STORY: CONSERVATIVES CAPTURING COURTS

A look at the current Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court and the role he has played in using the courts to push the conservative agenda.

- Click here for the article.

Hecht’s brief moment as a major public figure thus illustrated one of the larger themes of recent American political history: the centrality of the United States Supreme Court to the conservative movement. But the story of the following eight years in Hecht’s judicial career suggests something nearly as important: the transformation of state supreme courts into engines of conservative change.

For much of American history, state courts were relatively sleepy outposts for lions of the local bar. But starting in the nineteen-eighties, state supreme courts (particularly in states where judges are elected rather than appointed) became political battlegrounds. This was especially true in Texas, where a young political consultant named Karl Rove ran the campaigns that turned the Texas Supreme Court from all-Democrat to all-Republican. When Hecht first won election to the Court, in 1988, Rove ran his campaign. Led by Hecht and other Rove clients, the Texas Court became a firm ally of local business interests, especially the insurance industry.

From The Texas Observer: The Interview: Judge John Dietz on Texas’ School Finance Crisis

Deitz was the district judge who ruled that the recent cuts by the Texas Legislature in school finance were unconstitutional. This was overturned by the Texas Supreme Court.

Her reacts to the decision in an interview.

- Click here for it.

Texas Observer: When the Texas Supreme Court held the school funding system was constitutional, the justices spent plenty of time explaining why your ruling was wrong. What did you think about theirs?

John Dietz: Well, I don’t think they thought too much of my judgment, and I didn’t think too much of their decision. The way I viewed it was, [in the past] the Supreme Court has said this system needs to be fixed and you need to fix it now. The Legislature has never done that, unless you make them. They want to be told to do this because it gives them cover. I think that was an attempt, in my opinion — and it’s not a learned opinion — to get out of the school-finance litigation business altogether.

The law says that the Legislative Budget Board shall come up with a number. Nobody’s ever followed that law. So it’s always guesswork as to how much an accredited, adequate education costs. There is a criticism, which [Supreme Court Justice Don] Willett alludes to in the opinion, that there’s not a perfect correlation between the amount of money and the results. Now, there’s not no correlation. [It could be] that it’s inversely correlated, that the more money you get, the worse the outcome. Nobody’s saying it’s that way. Nobody, I think, really knows what the answer is. I think a lot of that has driven testing and accreditation. “Gosh, we’re giving ’em all this money and we’re not necessarily seeing the results.” That same test could be applied to just about anything the government does.

From the Corpus Christi Caller-Times: Courts are chipping at public’s right to know

A critical look at the Texas Supreme Court.

- Click here for the article.

Those of us who keep a close eye on Texas' evolving open government laws watch the state Legislature for signs of change. We also look at how local and state government agencies carry out these laws to see if they are working.

But we must focus on the courts, too.

Troubling rulings by the Texas Supreme Court and lower courts are watering down our Texas Public Information Act, long considered one of the strongest in the nation.
The momentous law, enacted in the early 1970s amid citizen frustration after the

Sharpstown stock fraud scandal, is based on the public's right to know. It presumes government records are open.

If a governmental body wants to withhold information, it can attempt to do so using one of the exceptions spelled out in the law. In most cases it must ask the Texas Attorney General's Office for permission to do it on a case-by-case basis.

That said, some cases end up in court, and the Texas Supreme Court twice last year interpreted the law in ways that made it easier to keep information secret.

The court decided the non-profit Greater Houston Partnership did not have to open its financial books to the public because it was not a governmental body, even though it performed economic development duties for the city of Houston and was supported in part by public funds.

Another disturbing decision involved the aerospace company Boeing operating in San Antonio. The court ruled that a private party doing business with the government can have its information in government documents withheld if releasing it would give advantage to a competitor. Furthermore, governments can now more easily withhold their own information on those grounds.

The result? Information is getting closed off in seemingly straightforward cases of public interest, such as the city of McAllen keeping secret how much taxpayer money it paid for singer Enrique Iglesias to perform at a holiday concert. The city says it doesn't want to be at a competitive disadvantage when negotiating with entertainers.

From the Texas Tribune: Latino Voters Sue to Bolster Influence on Electing Judges

For our look at civil rights, elections, and the judiciary - among other things.

Should Texas' top courts be elected in single member districts?

- Click here for the article.

The state’s most powerful courts don’t exactly resemble the population outside of their chambers.

Though Latinos make up more than a quarter of the state’s voting-age population, just one — Justice Eva Guzman — sits on the nine-member Texas Supreme Court. The same goes for the nine-member Court of Criminal Appeals, where Judge Elsa Alcalapresides.
Seeking to bolster their chronically sparse representation, seven Latino voters are suing Texas, arguing that its longtime method of electing statewide judges dilutes the voting power of a rapidly growing racial group.

“This is a very important case,” said Jose Garza, an attorney representing the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last week in a U.S. district court in Corpus Christi. “Latino voters don’t have a say in who gets elected to the Texas Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals.”

For more than a century, judges on the state’s high courts run have run in at-large partisan elections, vying for votes across the state. They serve staggered six-year terms. In a bright-red state like Texas, that voting system yields staunchly Republican courts, limiting election drama to primary races.

The plaintiffs — six voters in Nueces County and one in El Paso — argue that the current system prevents Latinos from choosing the candidates they prefer. Latino candidates would more consistently nab places on the courts, they suggest, if Texas carved up the courts geographically, creating single-member districts.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Supreme Court Halts Children's Therapy Cuts

Some checks and balances - also related to Texas' tendency to cut social services.

- Click here for the article.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday delivered a temporary, last-minute victory to families of children with disabilities who want to stop sweeping budget cuts to a state-funded children’s therapy program.

State lawmakers last year approved $350 million in budget cuts for Medicaid programs that provide physical, speech and occupational therapy to disabled children. Blocked once before by a district court order, the cuts were scheduled to take effect July 15 after an appellate court ruled in April that Texas could move forward with them.

The Supreme Court’s order will delay those cuts, which have been tied up in court for nearly a year, once again.

The disabled children’s families, joined by therapy providers who are paid by Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for the poor and disabled, sued the state over the pay cut, saying it would force medically necessary businesses to close and leave fragile children without access to health care.

Texas lawmakers ordered the cuts arguing that the state overpaid for those services. Many in-home therapy providers who treat children covered by Medicaid say the payment reduction would amount to a roughly 20 percent revenue cut that would force them out of business.

In the year since the budget was passed, dozens of lawmakers who voted for it have asked Texas officials to delay the cuts in order to study their projected effects more closely, for fear the move would jeopardize children’s access to health care.

The Supreme Court’s temporary injunction is not a ruling on the validity of the Medicaid cuts, but it buys time for the groups opposing the cuts to continue their aggressive lobbying campaign to have lawmakers revisit the issue.

From the Houston Chronicle: Texas needs to dump its franchise tax and come up with something better

Texas still doesn't know how best to tax its businesses.

- Click here for the article.

The franchise tax dates to 1907 and was premised on the idea that companies should pay something for the privilege of doing business in Texas. Over the years, it evolved into a payment made by some companies in return for state laws that limited their legal liabilities. These fees and costs were generally low and spread out across the business community.

That changed in 2006 when the Texas Supreme Court declared that because the Legislature limited what local authorities could charge in property tax rates - forcing almost all of them to charge the maximum rate - the Legislature had created a de facto state property tax. Since the Texas Constitution forbids such a thing, the court ordered the Legislature to find new ways to pay for things like schools.

The solution was a franchise tax based on margins of revenues, not on income. There are four methods of calculating the taxable margins on gross receipts in Texas, and companies are allowed to pick the one that is best for them. Unfortunately, that requires many companies to make all four calculations using an accountant with specialized training.

Compliance is therefore expensive, but the good news is that with a $1 million exemption, 94 percent of Texas companies will not have to pay any tax.

That doesn't make Texas a low-tax state for businesses, though. Businesses pay 64 percent of the taxes collected in Texas, compared with the 45 percent national average. Texas' effective tax rate on business is 5 percent, higher than the national average of 4.7 percent.

The business community let out a cheer last year when the Legislature came close to eliminating the franchise tax, but Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick insisted on raising the homestead exemption on personal property taxes. Instead, lawmakers only cut the franchise tax rate by 25 percent with a promise to ultimately phase out the tax.

That was 2015, though, when 1,600 oil and gas rigs were drilling in Texas, sales tax collections were jumping and appraisal districts were raising property values at a breakneck pace. Lawmakers know 2017 will be different.

From the Austin American Statesman: Grusendorf: School finance should value each student the same

A subject we've been covering in several 2306 sections. Texas' method of financing public school continues to be a - constitutional - mess.

- Click here for the article.

Any day now the Texas Supreme Court will likely rule on the pending school-finance case. Four issues are before the justices:

Efficiency: Is the system productive of results with little waste?
Equity: Is money equitably allocated?
Adequacy: Do schools have enough money?
State property tax: Is the state in violation of the prohibition against a state property tax. Texas taxpayers, legislators, and school officials anxiously await this pending decision.

The efficiency issue is before the court for the first time and was plead by the Texas Association of Business and five families. The other three issues have been litigated multiple times in the past and have consistently been brought to the courts by public schools and their various associations. Historically the focus of school-finance litigation has been money and how that money is allocated. However, the court has continued to indicate that money is only one issue and that the school-finance system needs systemic change.

For more than three decades, the Texas Legislature has been wrestling with the thorny issue of school finance and school finance litigation. Time and again the legislature has tweaked the system only to find the state back at the courthouse defending the latest legislative action. Although the Texas Supreme Court has consistently called for “structural” change, the legislative solution has always been more patches to the existing structure.

Clearly, a different approach is required if the seemingly endless cycle of litigation is to ever end. On the first day of the trial in 2012 the lead attorney for the school districts indicated that litigation was just part of the school finance system. That should not be the case.

The way education is funded today consists of a hodgepodge of highly complex outdated formulas that would make a nuclear physicist’s head spin, formulas which the trial court found have little relation to what is required to educate a child. The current formula system has evolved over time based primarily on political considerations. In other words, politicians tweak the school funding formulas to deliver additional funding to whichever school districts politicians wish to favor in order to harvest sufficient votes for passage of their preferred legislation. School finance has become a way to earmark funds for political purposes.

From The Texas Tribune: Texas Supreme Court To Rehear "Bizarre" Pipeline Case

A current items related to imminent domain and property rights involving the other top court in Texas.

- Click here for the article.

David Holland let out an exasperated chuckle as he considered where his family's eight-year-long legal fight has now delivered them: back to the Texas Supreme Court for a second time to fight a company's request to access their land in order to bury a pipeline, which it did anyway six years ago.

“It's an enormous, tangled mess,” he said.

The state's highest civil court has agreed to rehear the case, which could hold major implications for current and future battles between Texas landowners and pipeline operators, though it still may not fully resolve the Holland's convoluted legal saga.

The legal fight began in 2008, when David and James Holland sought to keep a company from surveying their Beaumont-area cattle ranch and rice farm to run a carbon dioxide pipeline underneath. Though the brothers had allowed a few dozen other pipelines to crisscross their property, Denbury Green Pipeline-Texas offered too little compensation to account for the damage it might inflict on the land, they said.

The company swiftly sued and convinced a state district court that its pipeline was a “common carrier” — available for public use — meaning the company was allowed to condemn the land through eminent domain. So Denbury built the pipeline. For six years, it has transported carbon dioxide from the Louisiana bank of the Mississippi River to the Hastings oilfield, south of Houston, where the gas bolsters oil production.

End of story? Hardly.

The Hollands appealed the lower court’s decision all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, and won. Last Friday — nearly five years after a landmark ruling for property rights advocates — the state’s highest civil court agreed to hear the case a second time.

The justices are set to revisit the case as the Texas Legislature is considering whether to tighten eminent domain laws to benefit landowners. Meanwhile, pipeline skirmishes persist across Texas, including Big Bend-area landowners’ long-shot effort to thwart the Trans-Pecos natural gas pipeline through the largely untouched region.

The broadest questions the case asks are these: How much evidence must the company offer that its pipeline is open to others? And when must the company show it?

From the Texas Lawyer: Texas Supreme Court Defends Indigent Litigants in Strong-Worded Opinion

Indigent defense suddenly seems topical.

- Click here for the story.

The Texas Supreme Court has slapped down Tarrant County District Clerk Thomas Wilder's policy of collecting court costs from indigent litigants.

The high court also warned any judge who seeks to demand money from indigent parties.

"It is an abuse of discretion for any judge, including a family law judge, to order costs in spite of an uncontested affidavit of indigence," said the 8-0 opinion in Campbell v. Wilder. Justice Debra Lehrman didn't participate in the decision.

Tarrant County assistant district attorney Chris Ponder, who represented Wilder, and former Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, a pro bono appellate lawyer for the indigent litigants, each didn't return a call seeking comment before deadline.

Lee Difilippo, who represented the petitioners in the trial court, said that the opinion guarantees that indigent litigants will obtain their constitutional right to access the courts.

"I'm really proud of my clients. It's been a long haul for them and they are not used to being in litigation. Their effort will now have a tremendous effect on behalf of all indigent litigants across the whole state of Texas," said Difilippo, founder of the Difilippo Holistic Law Center in Austin, which assists pro se litigants who cannot afford lawyers to access the courts.

Difilippo said the opinion is important because court clerks in other counties have been doing the same thing as Wilder.

"It'll hopefully just stop these practices," she said.

From the Texas Tribune: Multiple Lawsuits Could Spell Budget Doomsday for State

For our look at state finances.

- Click here for the article.

Last week, lawyers for the state of Texas got the latest in a string of bad legal news.
A lawsuit challenging the state’s foster care system as inhumane appeared to gain steam when an appeals court rejected the state’s request to stop the appointment of two “special masters” to recommend reforms.

The overhauls that have been discussed so far would be pricey to implement — as much as $100 million per year, according to rough estimates from the state comptroller’s office. But they actually are on the lower end of all the extraordinary legal expenses the state is facing at a time when stubbornly low oil prices are simultaneously threatening to blunt its coffers.

Three other lawsuits against the state — two of them pending before the Texas Supreme Court, with rulings expected soon — could cost the state billions if it ends up on the losing side. Experts say the state may have the cash to cover one of them in a single budget cycle, but probably not any more than that — especially if low oil prices persist, dampening the state's stream of tax revenue. That could mean budget cuts when lawmakers meet for the 2017 session, at least if the Republican-dominated Legislature remains steadfast in its refusal to tap the state’s nearly $10 billion Rainy Day Fund.

Two of those three lawsuits, both tax cases, could cost the state a combined $10.4 billion in tax refunds and up to $2 billion in collections per year beyond that, according to the comptroller’s office, which is closely monitoring them.

Potential cost estimates do not exist for the last case — a high-profile challenge to the state’s public education funding system — but past school finance rulings have cost the state billions.

Such sums would handily eclipse the state’s $4.2 billion projected surplus, which could itself dwindle if oil prices remain low and further blunt tax collections. (Comptroller Glenn Hegar has already lowered projections once.)

“Any of those by themselves are a huge hit,” said Dale Craymer, president of the business-backed Texas Taxpayers and Research Association. “But if you start losing two or three of those issues then, yeah, it’s much more questionable that the state’s general revenue reserves are sufficient to cover that.”

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Supreme Court Upholds Tax on "Small Tobacco"

More from the Texas Supreme Court, and bit in revenue collection in the state.

It also fits with a discussion in some classes about how laws in Texas favor large businesses over small ones.

- Click here for the article.

A state tax that imposes a 55-cent fee on each pack of cigarettes produced by small tobacco manufacturers is constitutional, even though larger tobacco manufacturers do not pay the tax, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday. 

In a ruling that overturned the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin, the justices said that the tax law, written by State Rep. John Otto, R-Dayton, and passed in 2013, was sound.

In December, lawyers for a coalition of companies known as "Small Tobacco" had argued that the tax, introduced by House Bill 3536, violated Texas’ “Equal and Uniform Clause,” which they interpreted to mean that taxes must be uniform on all items similar to each other. In other words, they claimed it was unfair to tax producers of certain cigarettes without also taxing the producers of essentially identical cigarettes from other companies.

The ruling Friday, written by Justice Don Willett, concluded the clause pertains to the entities being taxed, not the products themselves – and therefore, it was legitimate for the Legislature to draw a distinction between various classes of cigarette manufacturers.

“No reasonable person would dispute that an ice cream manufacturer could be classified differently than a computer manufacturer,” Willett wrote. In the same way, he explained, it is legitimate for the Legislature to make different “rational” classifications based on methods of conducting business, among other distinctions.

From the Texas Supreme Court: Texas Supreme Court Rules on Who Owns Dog

The court ruled on what the term "impounded" means. It does not include a transfer of ownership.

Now we know.

- Click here for the story.

A three-year legal fight over a German shepherd named Monte Carlo was resolved by the the Texas Supreme Court Friday in a case that may sound like an April Fool's joke but was anything but a laughing matter for those involved.

The court ruled unanimously that a Houston family did not forfeit their ownership claims over their dog even though he had been picked up by local animal control and transferred to a foster home. Nothing in Houston's ordinances “states or implies that a dog merely held by a private shelter, awaiting adoption, has been divested of the ownership rights of the original owner,” the justices stated in an unsigned opinion.

The case began when siblings Alfonso and Lydia Lira’s dog escaped from an open garage door on New Year’s Day 2013. According to case documents, Lydia Lira immediately began searching lost dog websites following Monte Carlo's escape. Meanwhile, the city of Houston’s animal control department picked the dog up. Though they posted his information online, they mistakenly listed him as a Belgian Malinois dog, so he did not come up in Lydia Lira's searches for missing German shepherds on the department's website.

Eight days after Monte Carlo's escape, Lydia Lira saw a message on a missing dog forum indicating her dog might be with the Houston animal control department. She visited the department that day, and identified Monte Carlo from a photograph. Animal control officers told her that Monte Carlo had already been transferred to the privately owned Greater Houston German Shepherd Dog Rescue. One of the rescue volunteers, Cindy Milstead, had agreed to foster the dog. When Lydia Lira called Milstead that afternoon to claim Monte Carlo, Milstead refused to give him back. The private rescue agency said the Lira siblings had lost their right to recover Monte Carlo because they did not come to claim him in his first three days at the pound.

The court disagreed, writing that the term “impounded” “does not suggest a transfer of ownership or the loss of the owner’s right to the return of his property,” the court's opinion read.

Edgewood v Kirby

Here are a few links relating to a seminal case where the Texas Supreme Court argued Texas' financing scheme for public schools violated the Texas Constitution. It followed on the heals of a less successful case - Rodriquez v. San Antonio ISD - where the US Supreme Court argued that education was not a fundamental right. It led to the Robin Hood plan, which required wealthier school districts to share resources with poorer districts.

- TSHA: Edgewood Independent School District et al. v. Kirby.
- TSHA: Rodríguez et al. v. San Antonio ISD.
- Wikipedia: Robin Hood Plan.
- HRO: Schools and Taxes: A Summary of Legislationof the 2006 Special Session.

Texas Judicial Branch - and the most recent state of the judiciary address.

Here's a nice resource that contains about tall the info about Texas Courts you would find in a typical textbook on the Texas judiciary, and much more. It's one of the reasons I like to avoid textbooks.

- Click here for it.

I'm highlighting the State of the Judiciary address presented by the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court to the Texas Legislature during the 84th Session.

- Click here for that.

He spent a good part of the address recommending legislative changes to juvenile justice, legal service for the poor, and for veterans. He also requested more funding so the courts can do their assigned work.

Here's a taste:

The Judiciary has assisted the Legislature in passing school ticketing reform. Disruptive conduct thwarts education, and teachers and administrators must have effective means to stop it. But for years, courthouse hallways were lined with youngsters who belonged in school, not in the criminal justice system. Working to balance the interests of children, schools, and the courts, the 83rd Legislature enacted reforms with sweeping results: fiscal year 2014 saw an 83% drop in criminal filings under the Education Code — that’s 90,000 fewer tickets written. Other states have followed Texas’ lead. As a result, more kids are in classrooms and out of courts. The reforms last Session did not extend to truancy and attendance laws, which, while intended to keep kids in school, often operate to keep them out.

The theory is that the threat of punishment will incentivize attendance. But when almost 100,000 criminal truancy charges are brought each year against Texas schoolchildren, one has to think, this approach may not be working. Playing hooky is bad, but is it criminal? A better, more effective solution may be for schools and courts alike to provide prevention and intervention services for at-risk children to actually achieve the goal: getting them back in school. This has led the Texas Judicial Council, a policy-making body for the Judiciary, to call for decriminalizing the failure to attend school. The stakes are high. Our children are our most precious treasures and our future. Education is the key to their success.

Some 40,000 children are in state conservatorship, and courts play a critical role in determining their future. The Supreme Court’s Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth, and Families has recommended legislative changes to improve handling of cases involving Child Protective Services. Indigent parents are entitled to a court-appointed attorney, but when there is no conflict of interest between them and no history of family violence, the Commission recommends that judges be permitted to appoint one attorney for both parents, not an attorney for each, thereby reducing costs and improving efficiency. The Commission also recommends the creation of county or regional programs to help provide attorneys for indigent parents. And the Commission recommends improved procedures for transferring a case from one county to another so that placement of children in a stable environment is not delayed. The Texas Judicial Council has endorsed all these recommendations, and I urge you to consider them.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Supreme Court Grapples With Billion-Dollar Question

Another issue that might end up on the agenda next session.

- Click here for the article.

With billions of dollars at stake, the Texas Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a tax showdown whose outcome could shake up the next legislative session while straining the historically friendly relationship between state lawmakers and the iconic oil and gas sector.

Throughout a spirited debate over arcane accounting rules and oil-tinged science, the justices offered few clues as to how they might rule.

“They’re all great poker faces,” said James LeBas, an economist with the Texas Oil & Gas Association and a former chief revenue estimator for Texas, following arguments.
The case ultimately focuses on a single question: Are metal pipes, tubing and other equipment used in oil and gas extraction exempt from sales taxes?

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar has warned state lawmakers that a yes to that question, brought by Midland-based Southwest Royalties in an appeal of a lower court’s ruling, could trigger a flood of refunds that would wipe out the state’s projected $4 billion budget surplus.

“This one’s as big as they come,” the Republican said ahead of the arguments.

Catching up with the primary race for Texas Supreme Court

Both from the Texas Tribune:

- Three Supreme Court Justices Face Challenges.

In all three state Supreme Court seats up for election this year, Republican incumbents face primary challengers on March 1 — but that's where the similarities end. Medical malpractice litigation dominates one race. A second pits two men named Green against each other. And the third features a two-time loser trying again to reach the state's highest civil court.

Supreme Court justices are elected at large. No Democrat has won a seat on the court since 1992, so the GOP primary effectively picks the winners. Here's the rundown:

You'll have to click on the article for the rundown.

- Analysis: In Supreme Court Primary Race, a Question of Judgment.

Something unusual turned up in the arguments over which Green — Paul or Rick — should be the Republican Party’s nominee for a seat on the Texas Supreme Court.

Their primary isn’t just about confusion over their names, but about their judgment. And their disagreement over a much-remarked 2015 ruling by the high court reveals a lot about what each would do after donning the judicial robes.

- Analysis: Could Surname Be Key in Republican Supreme Court Race?

What’s the deal with Texas Republican primary voters and candidates with Hispanic names?

This question comes around every two years — usually as part of an election autopsy exploring why a particular candidate lost.

The question describes risk more than it describes certainty: Sometimes, it does not apply at all; sometimes, the difference in names seems to be the only reason for an election to come out the way it did.

It’s a risk for Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, who finds herself in a Republican primary against Joe Pool Jr. of Dallas, who has unsuccessfully tried to get on the court two times before this year.

For all the candidates for the Texas Supreme Court - as well as the rest - click here.

From the Texas Tribune: In Major Water Case, Win for Ranchers is Loss For Cities

Water rights have always been a thing in Texas,and with depleted water tables peppered with the occasional drought, they're becoming more of a thing.

The interests of cities will not take precedence over the interests of farmers and ranchers.

- Click here for the story.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday handed a victory to farmers, ranchers and other longstanding water rights holders by declining to take up a Brazos River case with widespread implications for future water battles in drought-prone Texas.

Denying a state petition for review, the justices left in place a lower court’s ruling that said Texas cannot give special treatment to cities or power generators over more “senior” water rights holders on parched rivers — even if the state declares it necessary to protect the “public health, safety and welfare.”

That means some cities, power generators or others with more “junior” river rights would need to pay up or go thirsty when severe drought strikes.

The Texas Farm Bureau, which challenged a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality policy giving cities preferential treatment in certain water skirmishes, hailed the Supreme Court’s decision to leave in place an April 2015 decision from the 13th Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi.