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V. Who Bankrolls the Justices?

Lawyers, Big Checks
Fill Justices’ Campaign Coffers

Elect. Contribs Percent of Law Firm/ Non-Law Firm Justice Cycle > $100 War Chest Lawyer $ Business/PAC $ Hecht '94 $1,931,491 94% $713,689 (37%) $378,341 (20%) Owen '94 $1,080,823 92% $338,902 (31%) $231,379 (21%) Baker '96 $1,051,228 96% $515,583 (49%) $156,596 (15%) Phillips '96 $1,333,961 96% $590,680 (44%) $193,514 (15%) Abbott '98 $1,387,167 97% $786,015 (57%) $202,446 (15%) Enoch '98 $1,451,264 96% $725,496 (50%) $227,537 (16%) Hankinson '98 $1,145,577 99% $747,234 (65%) $195,480 (17%) O'Neill '98 $1,197,166 99% $696,204 (58%) $200,359 (17%) Gonzales '99 $202,801 97% $105,600 (52%) $44,600 (22%) TOTAL   $10,781,578 98% $5,219,403 (48%) $1,830,252 (17%)

Texas Supreme Court justices take about half of their money from individual donors. The other half comes from institutional donors: political action committees (PACs) and non-corporate businesses such as law firms. Almost all of the justices’ PAC money comes from business PACs, with labor union PACs supplying a drop in the bucket. Similarly, the biggest individual contributors are business executives and lawyers, many of whom have interests before the court.
 
 

A. Court Contributions 
By Economic Interest

Interest Group Contributions Percent of Total Lawyers & Law Firms $5,219,407 48% Energy & Natural Resources $1,404,528 13% Unknown $681,584 6% Finance $604,084 6% Medical $549,692 5% Miscellaneous Business $425,552 4% Construction $394,291 4% Real Estate $342,952 3% Insurance $282,090 3% Other $222,492 2% Transportation $181,213 2% Ideology $180,516 2% Communications & Electronics $165,625 2% Agriculture $120,452 1% Labor $7,000 0% TOTAL $10,781,478 100%

A few economic interests supply the vast majority of Supreme Court campaign cash. Lawyers and Law Firms—many of which argue cases before the justices—account for more than $5 million, or almost half the money that the justices raised. The vast majority of this bar money—79 percent—comes from business and corporate defense firms.

The justices’ enormous financial dependence on lawyers dramatically increased over the three election cycles covered here, with lawyer money increasing in both absolute and relative terms. Lawyers accounted for 35 percent of the total money raised by current justices who were elected in 1994, 46 percent of the money raised in the 1996 cycle, and an extraordinary 57 percent of the money raised by the four sitting justices elected in 1998.
 
 

Bar Dependence Escalates

Part of the relative increase in the importance of attorney contributions can be attributed to diminishing contributions from the medical establishment. The Texas Medical Association and its physicians made a full-court press in the early 1990s for justices who are hostile to malpractice lawsuits. Justices Hecht and Owen took $247,553—or 8 percent of all their money—from the medical sector in 1994, the year that industry consolidated its hold on the court. In contrast, the four sitting justices elected in 1998—after doctors had won this war—took a total of $168,647 from the medical industry, or 3 percent of their total war chests.

Just a few other economic sectors accounted for significant shares of the justices’ money. With $1.4 million, the Energy and Natural Resources sector contributed 13 percent of the justices’ money. Only two other industries—Finance and Medical—accounted for at least 5 percent of the justices’ money by contributing more than $500,000.