ipl-logo

The Texas Judicial System

918 Words4 Pages

The Texas judicial system is bifurcated, where there are two supreme courts to serve justice. While one of the “highest courts” serves justice to civil cases, the other serves justice to criminal cases. Tom Phillips, former chief justice on the Texas Supreme Court, stated “Of the ways you can elect judges, Texas has one of the worst systems” (Chammah). Judicial elections in Texas have been impacted greatly by campaign contributions from interests’ groups, PAC’s, and law firms. In addition, partisan elections and low voter knowledge has made it more facile for these interest group to lobby their way into the legislative branch, thus, spreading into the judicial branch where elections count the most.
Texas elects’ judges, and the awareness …show more content…

Many state supreme courts like Texas, “are now dominated by conservative judges that favor corporate defendants over individual plaintiffs. Republican justices outnumber Democrat justices” (Corriher). Texas supreme court elections may very well cost more than congressional elections. Why? In partisan judicial elections, interests’ groups, who are usually trial lawyers and big business groups, fund judges that could be more “pro-business”, eventually so that they rule in favor of business policies. Because Texas officials are dominantly Republican, Republican judges have dominated and support “pro-business, pro-life, and anti-government” (Corriher). By labeling a judge as a Republican or a Democrat one can tell how little most voters know about how judges will decide about cases. If “voting based solely on a judicial candidate’s political party can lead to controversial results” …show more content…

Most of the “donations” that are given start from thousands and “there’s no limits on how much an individual can give” (Moyer). These vast amounts of money can impact judges court decisions in favor to the groups that funded their campaign elections. It is almost as judges are returning a favor in form of approving certain policies and ruling “pro-business”. Campaign contributions can lead to a corrupt government which now is being regulated by the Judicial campaign fairness act. This act is used to put “limitations on judicial campaign contributions” (lecture). The US Supreme Court has been aware and now has seen what money can buy in Texas, including justice. In Texas, citizens are concerned with politics, and justice for sale. Active reformers in Texas are currently working hard to reverse this result and help restore the ideologies that were once believed

Show More
Related

  • Two Types Of Government Works Under The Constitution Of Texas

    764 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the Texas Constitution, the local government is subordinate to the state government. The Texas Constitution contains numerous statutory arrangements that indicate decisively what the government is permitted to do or not to do. At the point when open policy challenges emerge, Texas’ public officials do not have the choice of translating the constitution in a way that would enable them to veer off from the particular dialect of the

    Read More

  • The Supreme Court's Secret Power Summary

    738 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Supreme Court has to vote on their cases but there is no way for the public to know why they take the case there is a veil over the court. It has been suggested to the court to post a tally of what cases the court is selects the cases that the have chosen as well as the people should know what type of cases the justices have selected for reave. It has come to some individual attention that the people of the United State do not know what the courts have dissuaded on the cases the select, some justices may only vote to take cases that correlate with their agenda; cases that involve corporate Americas issues. This could lead to the people of this county, as well as others in

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Political Culture Of Texas And The Media

    1025 Words  | 5 Pages

    The political culture of Texas can be described as being both Individualistic as well as Traditionalistic. In other words, Texas believes in the basic feature of individualistic values such as a strong belief in self-reliance, resistance to regulation, and a suspicion of public institutions. However,

    Read More

  • Shelby County V. Holder's Argumentative Analysis

    226 Words  | 1 Pages

    We see multiple successes of voting equality attempted through amendments, however, the Supreme Court’s decision on Shelby County v. Holder has pushed back years and years of effort for voting rights. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling was in Shelby County’s favor, stating that the Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional along with Section 5. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr, who wrote the majority’s opinion, said that the power to regulate election was reserved to the states, not the federal government. As a result to the court’s decision, the federal government can no longer determine which voting law discriminates and can be passed. After the case, many states had freely passed new voting laws; the most common voting law states passed

    Read More

  • The Five Levels Of The Texas Court System

    249 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Texas State Court system is very structured. There are 5 levels of the Texas Courts. Level 5 starts with Justice and Municipal Courts. Justice Courts have Jurisdiction over civil actions, small crimes, and criminal misdemeanors. The Municipal courts have jurisdiction over municipal ordnance cases and criminal misdemeanors that are only punishable by fine.

    Read More

  • Essay On Texas Government

    944 Words  | 4 Pages

    The history of political parties in Texas is marked by nearly a century of Democratic Party dominance followed by a realignment that shifted the balance of power in favor if the republicans. Political science professor Cal Jilson noted that the dominance of one party in Texas has been a result of the state’s dominant values. Both parties in Texas today reflect more conservative versions of their national counterparts. The other chapter talks about the Interest groups in Texas. Interest groups plays a critical role in all democratic systems of government.

    Read More

  • Voter Participation In Texas Essay

    680 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although Texas government is democratic, the rich and educated make most of the decisions according to Texas politics, 6th Edition. Government-refers to the institutions in which decision are being made that resolve conflicts or allocate benefits and privileges. Institution refers to an ongoing organization that performs certain functions for society. Another report by the National Bureau of Census shows that Texas is in the top 10% of citizens below poverty line. With such wealth inequality in Texas, is no wonder minorities tend to be less involved.

    Read More

  • Campaign Finance Reform Case Study

    1306 Words  | 6 Pages

    Due to the increased prevalence of claims that corporations in the United States are buying and selling politicians through campaign donations, the Supreme Court has been forced to address campaign finance and campaign finance reform in the last several decades. Most people are aware of the highly controversial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling of 2010. However, the Supreme Court has handed down other important decisions that impact campaign finance, whether at the state or federal level, including Buckley v. Valeo (1976), McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), and several others. In most of these cases, the Supreme Court ascertained whether campaign spending and donations violated the Federal Election Campaign

    Read More

  • The Judicial Selection Process

    1254 Words  | 6 Pages

    In this paper I will, Discuss the judicial selection process of my state, choose a second state, and describe the qualifications and the selection

    Read More

  • Summary Of Gerald Rosenberg's Book 'The Hollow Hope'

    710 Words  | 3 Pages

    Alex Frost Values: Law & Society 9/23/2014 The Hollow Hope Introduction and Chapter 1 Gerald Rosenberg begins his book by posing the questions he will attempt to answer for the reader throughout the rest of the text: Under what conditions do courts produce political and social change? And how effective have the courts been in producing social change under such past decisions as Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education? He then works to define some of the principles and view points 'currently' held about the US Supreme court system.

    Read More

  • The Plural Executive By Rick Perry: Governor Of Texas

    805 Words  | 4 Pages

    Many of the issues go back to the civil war era, and during this time E.J. Davis was the governor of Texas. During his time as governor Davis used his power to and appointed over 8,000 public officials (Brown et al. 2014, p. 145). Many Anglo Texans have complained that during the time of Davis’s run as Governor he clearly abused the power that was given to him (Brown et al. 2014, p. 300). This was a big reason as to why the people of Texas wanted to limit the power that the governor can have.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Broken Bench

    247 Words  | 1 Pages

    The article Broken Bench explains the controversy over having “tiny courts” in New York State. The author, William Glaberson argues that the idea of justice within the jurisdiction of these tiny courts is unfairly decided among the justices in charge. Due to the lack of experience of these justices, it is difficult for fair justice to be dealt out. One of the major causes explained by the author for unfair justice is that the justices of the court are very inexperienced. For example, William Glaberson states, “Nearly three-quarters of the judges are not lawyers, and many — truck drivers, sewer workers or laborers — have scant grasp of the most basic legal principles.

    Read More

  • Texas Constitution Pros And Cons

    762 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Constitution of 1876 was toward the end in the development of a new, restructured and revised constitution in Texas, yet it was not the last attempt to revise the natural law of Texas. Pressure begin to build to change and streamline the Texas Constitution in the late 1960s. By 1969, fifty-six obsolete and out dated provisions were revoked, including a whole article. This called for a more fundamental overhaul and restructuring of the Constitution, which led to an extensive and prolonged process of constitutional revision that began in the 1970s. Efforts during this time were imperative for two reasons: it explained a long-standing concern whether the legislature had the constitutional right to convene as a constitutional convention; and secondly, the Texas Constitutional Revision Commission provided a thorough revision of the state constitution that served as the foundation for a new

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay: Texas Death Penalty In The United States

    932 Words  | 4 Pages

    To win any kind of election/re-election candidates must work to please voters. Here in Texas where a majority of people have a strong pro-death penalty stance, judges must also have a strong stance regarding the death penalty if they would like to remain in office. This is concerning because judges will be more likely to seek he death penalty for the convicted so they can create a record of toughness to win over voters. Some elected judges are sometimes of lesser quality than appointed judges in other states, but since they have a record of toughness everything else is thrown out the window. District attorneys also try to maintain a tough reputation as well.

    Read More

  • Essay On Judicial Selection

    801 Words  | 4 Pages

    Judicial selection is an intriguing topic as there are multiple ways that judges take their seat on the bench. The United States Constitution spells out how federal judges are selected and leaves it up to the individual states to establish their means for selecting judges. In federal courts, judges are appointed and it varies between appointment and election for state courts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the differences between appointments and elections (as well as the multiple types of elections) and to give an opinion as to which is the better alternative. Federal judges are appointed by the President of the United States and are confirmed on the advice and consent of the United States Senate.

    Read More

More about The Texas Judicial System

Open Document