It’s an issue that won’t go away but never seems to be resolved. Efforts to change the way Texas selects its judges have been unsuccessful over the past 25 years, despite strong support from several key state leaders and evidence that partisan voting has swept dozens of judges from office in Harris and Dallas counties.
For more than a decade, state Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, has authored bills and proposed constitutional amendments that would create some form of a merit-selection system in which the governor would initially appoint judges, who would subsequently have to run unopposed in retention elections to keep their jobs. Duncan, a partner in Crenshaw, Dupree & Milam, says Texas’ current method of selecting judges isn’t working, as judges continue to get caught in partisan sweeps.
