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American Courthouse has tipped us off to a story on Texas Watchdog about a big donor to democratic judicial candidates in Texas — attorney Mikal Watts — who has an interesting view about the effect of his campaign contributions.  A letter Watts drafted to opposing counsel in a pending case argues that the parties should settle because:

[Watts] would prevail in an appeal because his law firm helped finance the campaigns of judges on the state’s 13th Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi. . . . “This court is comprised of six justices, all of whom are good Democrats,” Watts wrote in the letter. “The Chief Justice, Hon. Rogelio Valdez, was recently elected with our firm’s heavy support, and is a man who believes in the sanctity of jury verdicts.”

When called upon to explain the letter, Watts said he meant to convey that

the Texas Supreme Court wouldn’t hear the case if he won it on the appellate level. Why does that matter?  Watts explained that the lawyers he takes on typically will boast in their own right, saying, “It doesn’t matter what a jury is going to do because we’ve got nine angry Republicans on the Texas Supreme Court who will take away whatever a jury does.”

Texas Watchdog sums it up like this: “In other words, Watts seems to be saying that if he was bragging about rigging the system, it was only to give the other guys a taste of their own medicine.”

We already know that the public believes that campaign contributions affect decisions in the courtroom.  This incident demonstrates that the belief is shared by at least some of those who contribute to judicial campaigns.  How widespread is that belief? It’s hard to know, but what else explains the continuing escalation in campaign war chests?

We think the right way to solve this problem is to get money out of the process of choosing judges.

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