Burnt Orange Report

"To us here, it's hardly a big deal, but it's great political fodder."

I think it is a very big deal. It creates at least an appearance of conflict of interest. If not an actual one. Judges, like Caesar, should be beyond reproach. Which is impossible when they are labeled a "Democratic" or a "Republican" judge. In itself, that label reflects a position set by a political party. Rather than a position derived solely on the basis of constitutional law.

That Bell County judge, judge Duncan, has given money to Sen. Cornyn -- just an FYI.

Either way, I find it ridiculous that Tom "Smiley" Delay is able to shop for a judge.

Bob Perkins is a very good judge and a great guy personally. But really ... if you were in DeLay's position, wouldn't you have filed the same motion? Don't confuse politics with prudent legal strategy.

Is DeLay allowed to continue with this same strategy until he hits a judge who did NOT donate to Democratic entities? If Texas has partisan judicial elections, and a judge did not donate to the Democrats, given our current two-party system, wouldn't that mean that this situation eventually defaults to DeLay getting a Republican judge? (I'm not from Texas, and I'm honestly curious/concerned.)

Eliz--

Most likely. Or, Delay could just find someone who's given to/received money from both sides, or a judge that hasn't given money in many years. There are some judges under consideration that gave money to Democrats back in the 80's -- when the Democrats were Rick Perry, et. all.

Either way, to repeat what I said earlier, I still don't think Delay should be able to shop for a judge. Just doesn't make sense.

"Either way, I find it ridiculous that Tom "Smiley" Delay is able to shop for a judge."

Well, to be fair, Ronnie Earle apparently shopped for a grand jury.

Maybe in the end Texans will finally get the message and ban partisan judicial races and ban contributions to and from judicial candidates which would take care of the objection by all the attorneys and their law firms who buy the judges. Create a fund and distribute a like amount to each judicial candidate.

Don't like that idea? You haven't noticed what is sitting on the benches then in Harris County.
Apparently the Harris County Democratic Party has hoped for you years that no one noticed. It gives little if any attention to those races. Mustn't upset the sitting judges since the Democratic attorneys have to plead cases as well as the Republican attorneys.

Ronnie Earle at this point is as much a disgrace as Tom De Lay as far as I'm concerned. But the Public Integrity Unit is the one thing that protects us from local district attorneys who abuse their prosecutorial discretion.

Don't forget that the Ft. Bend County district attorney could have easily sought an indictment of Tom De Lay as well. And instead said he wasn't aware that Tom De Lay had done anything wrong and invited Ronnie Earle to forward whatever he had to him. Smiling for the cameras of course as he did so.

The Republican Party has hijacked this country. But some of us let them on the plane despite the metal detector going off.

DeLay is unlikely to fail in his motion for a change of venue. But if the trial is in Travis County, I cannot imagine that any other sitting judge here would be removed. Judge Perkins, a fine and honest jurist, is probably the only one who the defense could get kicked. This will not become a legal version of "Groundhog Day."

I think what got Perkins removed was not donating to Democratic candidatesm, but donating to MoveOn.org.

I do think that the case is troublesome because, taken to its extreme, it means that only a Judge who is a member of the same politcal party of a Defendant can preside over the case. Interesting to see if Earle appeals this decision.

As far as electing Judges in partisan elections, it's kind of like what Winston Churchill said about Democracy - its the worst system of Government, with the exception of all others.

The argument against an elected judiciary (an against partisan elected ones in particular) is that it "politicizes" the process. The argument is naive because other systems do not elminate the politics, and usually just exacerbate them. (Remember, we live in the "real" world)

Bush v. Gore showed that appointed judges are no better than elected ones when it politicized decisions. Given that, I'll take elections over appointments so at least in theory you can take out the bad ones.

The thought of Rick Perry appointing our judges should be enough of a reason to 1)oppose appointed judges and 2) get Kinky on the ballot and get rid of Rick Perry.

For some reason, I have an image of my mind of a Governor Kinky Friedman appointing Larry Joe from Texas Justice..as a State District Judge..or would he be the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court?

Larry Joe would be an improvement over some of the totally incompetent and in some cases outright sleazy judges who were elected simply because they were licensed to practice law and were Republicans AND there were no challengers.

Emphasis on the latter for all the bitch-bitch-bitch Democrats who don't think judicial races are important. Especially the county chairs who don't think judicial races are important.

Given that "Whome?"'s argument is supposedly grounded in the "real world", he/she would do well to look at the empirical evidence regarding partisan judicial elections versus other systems.

Texas is one of only two states in the country with a fully partisan elected judiciary. West Virginia is the other. West Virginia, however, has longer terms, which means that judges spend much less time raising money and campaigning (with all of the attendant conflicts of interest).

However, is it true that Texas' system is no more politicized than other states'? Or no worse in performance? In every major comprehensive study of the quality of state judicial systems, Texas ranks in the bottom tier, often in the bottom five. These rankings include surveys of attorneys, legal scholars, corporations, and more. Interestingly, both liberal leaning groups AND prominent surveys of corporate in-house counsels consistently rank Texas at the bottom of states. By contrast, judicial systems in supposedly "liberal" states like New York and Massachusetts consistently rank as the most "business friendly" jurisdictions, as well as high in overall reputation for quality.

In terms of politicization, Texas also comes out on bottom. Major donors are fairly good predictors of the behavior of judges, and judicial behavior is more correlated to political factors in Texas than in states with other systems.

To avoid overstating the problem, I should note that state judges as a whole are actually far less "political" than the federal judiciary; state judges are surprisingly consistent in their approach to cases. Even the federal judiciary is much less political than people think outside of "hot button" issues like abortion, affirmative action, and environmental regulation. There's good data to show that there is widespread agreement among judges in the vast majority of tort, property, criminal, and contract law matters.

Are the other systems perfect? No, but there is overwhelming evidence that Texas has the worst system. And remember, the alternative to fully partisan elections isn't just lifetime appointment. Most states now use the Missouri system, where a non-partisan or bipartisan board of experts (judges, state bar officials, attorneys, etc.) recommend lists of candidates to the governor, who selects appointments from the list. Then periodically, judges have a "retention election" where voters vote "yes" or "no" to retain a judge. If a majority vote no, the judge is removed.

The Missouri system has its flaws - most voters don't really keep up with judges, so there's a lot of inertia, and on the other hand, many voters leave the ballot blank, so that organized special interest groups can remove an otherwise good judge with relatively few votes. But on balance, the Missouri system seems to combine democratic and merit-based elements in a reasonable compromise. Voters still participate in the process, but judges don't need to campaign in a way that encourages conflicts of interest through fundraising or making promises about how to rule on prospective cases.