Texas Supreme Court Candidates Awash In Contributions

Brooks Schuelke

Contributor

0 CommentsPrint ArticleSubscribe

Yesterday, early voting started in Texas. Lost amidst the hype of the presidential election are the elections of three Texas Supreme Court justices. Unfortunately, their race highlights a growing problem in Texas: the reliance of contributions from parties with business before the Court.

Texans for Public Justice, a non-partisan watchdog group, released a report earlier this month talking about this phenomenon. After doing a study, the group found that for the three incumbents and their challengers alike approximately 2/3 of their donations come from attorneys or parties with business before the Court.

Frankly, I think we should all be concerned about impartiality of our justices when this is the case. And having a Court that currently decides almost 90% of its cases for big business or insurance companies, I think questioning the effect of those contributions might be appropriate.