Houston Chronicle by JIM VERTUNO 3/7/2019
Gov. Greg Abbott has quietly been stocking Texas courts with Republican judges freshly rejected by voters, employing one of the strongest powers of his office to stem the erosion of the GOP's decades-long dominance in the state.
In the three months since the worst election night for Texas Republicans in a generation, four of Abbott's last six judicial appointments to fill key court vacancies have been former Republican judges who lost their 2018 races. One was elevated to the Texas Supreme Court just weeks after being voted out of a lower court in Houston.
Texas is among a handful of states that hold partisan elections of judges from lower-level district courts all the way through the highest appeals courts. The ability to fill vacancies is one of the strongest tools of the governor's office.
Abbott's recent appointments have stoked criticism from some Democrats that Abbott is thumbing his nose at voters. They've also questioned why Texas Republicans are sounding sudden alarms about partisan waves threatening judicial integrity. That includes Abbott, himself a former judge, who in February tweeted that the makeup of courts shouldn't be left "to the political winds of the day."
Four days later, Abbott appointed Brett Busby to fill a state Supreme Court vacancy. The former attorney for Christian legal groups and member of the conservative Federalist Society had just lost his re-election bid to a Houston appeals court.
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