Payola Justice: How Texas Supreme Court Justices Raise Money from Court Litigants

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There was much more variation in the total amount of money raised by the seven justices studied here then there was in the share of money that each justice took from contributors with close links to the courts' docket. Justice Hecht and Justice Gonazlez–the only Democrat studied–led the fundraising pack with close to $2 million each. Four justices (Phillips, Cornyn, Owen and Baker) filled in the middle tier, raising between $1 million and $1.5 million. Finally, Justice Abbott, raised $689,918.

The share of the justices' contributions linked to the docket ranged from a high of 46 percent (Justices Abbott and Cornyn) to a low of 32 percent (Justice Owen). But this variation appears to have more to do with the date of a justice's last election than it does with individual fundraising practices. Note that the three justices who had less than 40 percent of their money linked to the court's docket raised their money in the 1994 cycle. By contrast, the justices with greater money links to the docket did their fundraising in the 1996 cycle. There were several reformist pushes for better contribution reporting in the early 1990s, reforms that noticeably improved contribution reporting in the 1996 cycle. Not surprisingly, more complete reporting makes it easier to detect contributor links to the court docket.¹⁹

There is no question that more complete reporting aids the detection of links between contributors and the docket. When, for example, the focus is narrowed to contributions from sources for which employer data was provided or uncovered,²⁰ the share of money linked to the docket rises an average of four percentage points for each justice. Looking just at these data, the percentage of docket-linked money ranges from 38 percent (for Justice Owen) to 48 percent (for Justice Abbott).

Cake Walks
Few of the seven justices were compelled to raise so much tainted money by political necessity. Five of the justices (Gonzalez, Phillips, Cornyn, Baker and Abbott) enjoyed dizzying financial advantages, raising between 14 times and 1,425 times what their main general election opponent had to spend²¹. Justice Hecht raised almost three times what his chief opponent had. Justice Owen was the only one of the seven who raised less money than her chief opponent, though the difference was so small that she and Democrat Jimmy Carroll ran with comparable amounts of money.

* Greater of amount raised or spent. Election cycle is same as in previous table.

When the same general election races are analyzed by outcome, only two justices ran a close race, which is defined as one won by 55 percent of the vote or less. Justices Cornyn and Baker ran these squeaker races, despite respectively having raised 14 times and 334 times the amount of money that their chief opponents had at their disposal.

While politicians sometimes must also raise and spend money to win their party's primary, just two of these justices faced such a hurdle. Five of the Justices (Phillips, Cornyn, Owen, Baker and Abbott) won 100 percent of the vote in uncontested primaries. Justice Hecht was the only Republican facing a primary challenge, winning 61 percent of the vote over challenger Charles Howell in 1994. Finally, that same year Democrat Raul Gonzalez faced two challengers for the Democratic ticket, winning the nomination with 42 percent of the vote.

While few of the seven justices faced tough financial challenges from opponents, Justices Phillips and Abbott arguably had the least need to go out on a limb and raise money from docket-linked sources. Neither of these men faced a primary challenger or faced serious political or financial competition in the general election.

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