One key takeaway from the SCOTx ruling in the Kate Cox case

I’m sure you’re as mad about the Kate Cox case as I am. The thing you need to know is there is very much something you can do about it. Like, right now.

When a majority of Texans want the Legislature to expand access to abortion, it’s a bold political move to throw the weight of the state against an “extremely sympathetic plaintiff,” [UT law professor Elizabeth] Sepper said.

“It shows that Texas politicians feel so shielded from any sort of electoral consequences related to attacks on women’s equality that they’re just going to keep on keeping on,” she said.

[…]

When the U.S. Supreme Court threw the abortion issue back to the individual states, it handed a great deal of authority to state supreme courts, which have typically drawn less attention than their federal counterparts. Texas’ Supreme Court is unique in that it handles only civil cases, and is one of just a handful of states that selects justices through a partisan election system.

All nine justices are Republicans, a mix of longtime jurists, acolytes of Gov. Greg Abbott, and at least one anti-abortion activist.

Justice John Phillip Devine was first elected in 2013, when he unseated a Republican incumbent and ran unopposed in the general election. Before joining the high court, he was best known for fighting to keep a copy of the Ten Commandments displayed in his courtroom, and during his campaign, proudly claimed he was arrested 37 times protesting outside abortion clinics.

He also made a campaign video about his wife’s seventh pregnancy, which she carried to term despite a lethal fetal abnormality. The baby died an hour after birth. According to the Texas Observer, the since-removed video asks, “What if your beliefs were so powerful, they allowed you to fearlessly risk your life for the life of your unborn child?”

Devine is up for reelection in 2024, alongside Justice Jimmy Blacklock, Abbott’s longtime general counsel. During his campaign, Blacklock attended an anti-abortion rally alongside Abbott, where the governor said he doesn’t “have to guess or wonder how Justice Blacklock is going to decide cases because of his proven record of fighting for pro-life causes.”

Blacklock told The Texas Tribune at the time that Abbott just meant he is confident in Blacklock’s judicial philosophy.

“I will be the kind of judge who looks only to the text of the Constitution and the text of the laws, and does not go beyond that to impose my own personal views on these cases,” Blacklock said.

After Monday’s ruling, the Texas Democratic Party said all three justices up for reelection will have challengers in the general election.

State Rep. Donna Howard, a Democrat, said this case, as much as any since the overturn of Dobbs, will hopefully shine a spotlight on the Texas Supreme Court

“The way the winter storm put ERCOT on everyone’s radar, abortion is going to put the Texas Supreme Court on people’s radar,” she said. “Voters may not have known who was on the Supreme Court or what the Supreme Court did before. But they will now.”

The third Justice on the ballot this year is Jane Bland. You might have heard me say a time or two that nothing will change in this state until the government changes. In particular, stuff like this will keep on happening until people who are now in office lose elections because of it. We can’t vote against Ken Paxton next year, but we can vote against these three. The best thing you can do towards that end is find the people in your life who aren’t committed Democrats – the low-information voters, the non-wingnut Republicans who don’t support complete abortion bans, you know who I’m talking about – and make sure they know about these three and why they need to be voted out. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s almost certainly going to take getting a substantial number of nominal Republicans to not vote for these Republicans, but it’s there to be done. If you’re mad about this and want to channel that into something constructive, this is what I suggest you do.

You may now be saying “Great! I know who to vote against! But maybe help me understand who I’d be voting for? Those people you want me to talk to, they like having a name and a reason to vote for them.” True, and good point. Christine Weems is running against John Devine. Weems is a District Court judge here in Harris County, elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. Randy Sarosdy, a trial and appellate lawyer in Austin, and DaSean Jones, another District Court judge in Harris County also elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022, are in the primary against Jimmy Blacklock. Bonnie Lee Goldstein, a 5th District Court of Appeals justice out of Dallas, and Joe Pool, an attorney in Hays County who ran for SCOTx in 2016, are competing to run against Jane Bland. So take a look at them now and see who you’d like to support in March, and you’ll be better prepared to talk them up to your audience.

(It would also be very nice if some national money came in to run ads against these Justices and remind everybody of what they did. Might help the nominee for Senate in the process, which would have all kinds of beneficial effects. That’s not on you and me, that’s way above our pay grades, but it would be nice. I’m just saying.)

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