CoA Membership Changes following 2014 Elections and Resignations that Created Vacancies; and the Last Perry Picks

RECENT CHANGES IN THE MEMBERSHIPS OF THE TEXAS COURTS OF APPEALS 

Just prior to leaving office, Governor Rick Perry appointed five new justices to vacancies on several intermediate courts of appeals. A few other membership changes were brought about by the November 2014 elections, effective January 1, 2015. Some of the sitting justices whose terms were ending in 2014 had not sought re-election, and one who did was defeated.

FIRST COURT OF APPEALS 
Former District Court Judge Russel Lloyd has replaced Jim Sharp, the Houston-based court's only Democratic member, whom he defeated in the November 2014 election.

SECOND COURT OF APPEALS
352nd District Court Judge Bonnie Sudderth has replaced Justice Bob McCoy on the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth.

THIRD COURT OF APPEALS
Cindy Bourland was selected to fill the Third Court of Appeals seat vacated by Justice Jeff Rose who is now Chief Justice of the Austin-based court. The appointment was made by Governor Rick Perry just prior to the end of his term of office. Bourland comes to the court from private practice.

FOURTH COURT OF APPEALS
Bexar County Court at Law Judge Jason Pulliam has joined the Fourth Court of Appeals as its only male and only African-American member. Rick Perry appointed him to the vacancy created by the election of associate justice Sandee Bryan Marion to chief justice.
Because Pulliam was serving as a county court judge at the time of the appointment, his elevation to the appellate bench also created a vacancy, but vacancies on county courts are filled by the County Commissioners, not by the Governor. The Bexar County Commissioners Court chose John A Longoria to succeed Pulliam as the presiding judge of County Court at Law No. 5 (CCL5).

FIFTH COURT OF APPEALS 
David Schenck, an appellate practitioner, has replaced Justice Michael O’Neill, who retired.
Gov. Perry Appointed Schenck, to fill the vacancy on January 7, 2015.

TWELTH COURT OF APPEALS 
Greg Neeley, a solo, received an appointment to succeed Justice Sam Griffith on the Twelfth Court of Appeals. Griffith had two more years to go, but resigned to devote himself to ministry work.

LINKS: Judicial Appointment by Governor Rick (Judgepedia)

The newly appointed justices are filling unexpired terms and will have to stand for election in 2016 if they like their new jobs and want to keep them. The justices and chief justices who were elected in 2014 will not face the voters again until 2020. This is because court of appeals justices have six-year terms, while district court judges serve four year terms. District court judges must thus submit to the will of the electorate, and to the partisan tides, more frequently. They are also elected from smaller districts, which means that the geographic basis for voting patterns is not the same for appellate and district court races.

The year a judicial election contest takes place can be important also because of differences in turnout and in the composition of the subset of the electorate that votes in presidential election years versus mid-term elections. Judicial election outcomes are heavily driven by straight-ticket voting. A landslide in a presidential election year thus benefits the judicial candidates of the party that wins control of the White House. That meant victory for many Democratic judicial candidates in 2008 even though the state as whole did not go for Obama. But the voting patterns, and outcome-changing swings depend heavily on electoral geography because some districts are safely in the hands of one party, while others are more competitive.

LINKS: Texas Secretary of State - Election Results for 2014 General Elections
Judgepedia - Texas Judicial Elections 2014 including outcomes of district court races
BLOG POSTS: Texas Appellate Law Blog 2014 Election Results, Texas Appellate Edition (posted by Attorney D. Todd Smith)

A different kind of courthouse bench 

THE 2014 GENERAL ELECTION OUTCOME - HIGH COURT CONTESTS   

Republicans won all contested races for seats on the Texas Supreme Court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and as a result all seats on both high courts remain in the hands of Republicans. Chief Nathan Hecht, Justice Jeff Brown, Justice Jeffrey S. Boyd, and Justice Phil Johnson ran as incumbents. Justice Johnson received the highest vote share (78.8%) because he did not even draw a Democratic Party challenger. The other incumbents on the Supreme Court handily won re-election with vote shares in the 59-60 percent range.

THE 2014 GENERAL ELECTIONS - JUDICIAL RACES - COURT OF APPEALS  

In the court of appeals races, all incumbents who ran for re-election in 2014 held on to their benches except one, Democrat Jim Sharp in Houston. As a result of Sharp's defeat, both Houston-based courts courts of appeals are now not only controlled by Republicans, but have, like the two courts of last resort in Texas, no minority party representation at all. But that does not mean that they always agree. Indeed, the Houston courts of appeals account for disproportionate share of dissenting opinions in state-wide comparison.

Republicans also won most of the other judicial contests around the state.

In Austin, Republican Jeff L. Rose defeated Democrat Diane Henson, a previous member of the Third Court of Appeals, in the open contest to succeed Woody Jones as Chief Justice.

In San Antonio, Republican Sandee Marion defeated Irene Alarcon Rios in the contest for chief justice that was also an open-seat race because the previous chief -- Catherine Stone -- had not sought re-election.

In Dallas, gubernatorial appointee Justice Craig Stoddart was confirmed by the voters. He had not drawn an opponent.

In Houston, Republican incumbent Kem Thompson Frost successfully defended her position as Chief on the Fourteenth Court of Appeals against Democratic challenger Kyle Carter, a Harris County District Court Judge first elected in 2008. Frost prevailed with a comfortable vote margin. On the same court, Ken Wise, also a former district court judge, beat off a challenge by Democratic candidate Gordon Goodman with 58.2% of the vote, an even higher share.

Also in Houston, as already mentioned, lone Democratic incumbent Jim Sharp went down in defeat. He received only 42.9% of the vote in his fight to stay on the First Court of Appeals, in which he did not even have the endorsement of the Houston Chronicle, despite the editorial board's preference for partisan diversity on the local courts of appeals.

In Corpus Christi, Democratic incumbent Dori Garza narrowly beat Republican challenger Doug Norman. 

Note: References to cities above are references to the seat of the court of appeals. The appellate districts from which the members of each courts of appeals are elected are much larger than the city and county in which the court is located. See --> Map of Texas Appellate Districts.