Burnt Orange Report

Texas Supreme Court Races

By Byron LaMasters

They're really pretty boring - Republicans currently hold all the seats on the court, and only one is contested by a Democrat this cycle. That's Place 9 where Democrat David Van Os is challenging Scott Brister. A reporter asked me about the race this week, Greg's crossed party lines to endorse Scott Brister, and even the Daily Texan, which has endorsed most every Democrat on the ticket refused to endorse Van Os, even after sharp criticism of Brister. I, on the other hand, dutifully cast my vote for Van Os, but not with any premonition that he might actually win.

The Daily Texan gives a pretty good overview of the race with ample reason to vote against Brister, even if Van Os isn't exactly what you're looking for in a judge:

Scott Brister, who Gov. Perry appointed last November, is living proof that the right has activist-judges of its own. He even goes so far as to question the separation between church and state. In fact, when asked at his Senate confirmation hearing - which he scraped by with the bare-minimum number of votes - if he believed in the separation between church and state, Brister answered, "It depends on the circumstances."

He has also refused to recuse himself from abortion-rights cases, despite his active opposition to the very concept of abortion rights. A qualified judge would step aside when a conflict of interest arose - not Brister.

But, even the Daily Texan had problems with Van Os:

Challenging Brister is David Van Os, a UT alum that has championed causes from civil rights to labor rights for more than 20 years. Van Os, however, is a first and foremost a Democrat. We worry Van Os - who once chaired the Travis County Democratic Party and has participated extensively in party activism - would have trouble being a judge first and Democrat second.

This concern is magnified by Van Os' staunch defense of CBS news memos casting doubt on President Bush's Vietnam War service. "What difference would it make" if "someone in the year 2004 had prepared on a word processor replicas of documents that they believed had existed in 1972 or 1973?" Overlooking convenient lies is no way for a judge - let alone a Supreme Court Justice - to adjudicate fairly.

Greg Wythe found this to be reason enough to endorse Brister:

Occassionally, there arises the cumberson need to put one's vote where one's faith is. And while the current goose-egg of Democratic officials elected statewide is something that needs a fix. Unfortunately, David Van Os on the Texas Supreme Court is not that fix.

Something strange happens when parties switch from out-of-power to in-power. The candidates on the cusp of that trend, those who sweep into office first, set the standard. They have the ability to help build the party. They also serve as the example to the rest of the state as to what voters might expect from further elected officials of that party. David Van Os would be a bad example to convince Texas voters why they need to consider Democrats in future elections. [...]

Sadly, the comments in print match many of the same thoughts derived from hearing Van Os in person. What am I to think of a judicial candidate who thinks more of being Karl Rove's biggest nightmare than applying the law fairly and accurately? Dare I say it, but perhaps a loose ideological canon.

I'll take my chances anew in '06 with, what I hope is a better slate of options to support.

On one hand I can understand where Greg is coming from. I think for a lot of Democrats, the vote for Van Os is more of a vote against Brister than of one for Van Os. There are times (especially in judicial races) when a poor candidate wins the nomination, and it makes more sense to elect a Republican than to elect a Democrat that would embarrass the party. I think we'll see some instances of this type of behavior in the next few cycles in Dallas (and Harris a cycle of two later) county as Democrats will probably field some poor nominees that could win on the basis of straight ticket party voting. It'll take a realization of the downtown establishment that Democrats are the majority party in Dallas county before we'll really see a real fight between highly qualified candidates for the Democratic nomination in judicial races (something that we see in Travis County every cycle).

I digress a little bit here, but it's relevent to the point that Greg made in that it's better to elect a Republican judge than to elect a Democratic one that will embarrass the party. I don't think that's the case with Van Os, but I can see how someone with a bit more conservative outlook could come to Greg's conclusion.

As for my comments on the race with San Antonio's weekly, the San Antonio Current, I basically said it wasn't much of a race, and that the Democratic activists in the state are most focused on congressional and state representative races:

"To be perfectly honest, it would be great to have a Democrat on either of those," says BurntOrangeReport.com Editor Byron LaMasters, but, "It wouldn't affect decisions." Which raises the question why, during an election year when the recent Enron scandal has increased public skepticism of corporations and when vice presidential candidate John Edwards' career as a very successful trial lawyer has hardly made a blip on the screen, Take Back Texas isn't fielding more statewide judicial candidates.

Meaning, what's the difference between a 9-0 decision and an 8-1 decision. Not much. Whereas a shift of just a few seats in the legislature makes a tangible difference in the make up of committees.

The reporter kept pressing me on what I thought Van Os's chances of winning his race were. I basically said, they're about as good as Kerry's are of winning Texas, and finally said a little bit more:

Nonetheless, statewide judicial races are a low priority among activists. "One of the reasons Democrats aren't contenders in four out of six of these (Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals races), is if you look at the statewide returns from 2000 and 2002, Democrats have been shut out," says LaMasters. "I suppose if David Van Os' opponent is indicted for something, David Van Os might win," but you can't "change traditional voting patterns in the state overnight."

The state party isn't really doing too much for Van Os (although Andrew has said he's helping with some of his press releases) - their focus is on thirteen state rep races:

is one of the architects of the Democrats' Take Back Texas campaign, a six-year plan to return democratic majorities to the statehouse, Texas' Congressional seats, and eventually, the courts. This year's efforts focus on 13 state representative races; the plan two years from now is to win the governorship and other key statewide offices.

All in all, it's not too exciting. Brister wins this race by a 60-40% margin at least.

Posted by Byron LaMasters at October 23, 2004 12:26 AM | TrackBack