How the Find Out PAC, Democrats seek to break GOP’s lock on Texas Supreme Court

October 21

In a widely shared video posted by Beto O’Rourke, a former U.S. representative and gubernatorial candidate, in December, Texas Supreme Court Justice John Devine is seen telling a spirited crowd of supporters that he was arrested 37 times for “rescuing at abortion clinics.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to submit to you that before I ever got into politics, my convictions were forged in the crucible of the pro-life movement,” Devine says in the video, taken in 2012, before describing the arrests. “Now, isn’t it an irony that today I stand before you as one who could very well win the Texas Supreme Court?”

Devine went on to win his first term on the high court in November 2012 and is seeking reelection to a third term in November.

O’Rourke shared the video on X, formerly Twitter, shortly after the Supreme Court ruled against Kate Cox, a Dallas mom of two who was seeking a legal abortion of a fetus with a fatal diagnosis of trisomy 18. Her doctor had asserted with “good faith judgment” that carrying the pregnancy to term would put Cox’s fertility at risk and could hurt her chances of having a healthy child in the future, according to court filings.

Adhering closely to the language of Texas’ 2021 and 2022 laws against abortion, the court ruled that Cox had not proved that she met the criteria for an exception to the ban, which requires a doctor to assert with “reasonable medical judgment” that a woman faces a life-threatening condition that puts her at risk of death or “at serious risk of substantial loss of a major bodily function.” The justices wrote, however, that their ruling would not preclude a legal abortion if Cox’s doctor asserted with “reasonable medical judgment” that she met the exception conditions.

The decision captured the nation’s attention and highlighted Texas’ strict laws against abortions, which make no exceptions for rape, incest or fatal fetal diagnoses. It also trained unusual attention on the election process for justices on the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court, which is the state’s avenue of last resort for civil matters.

More: Everything you need to know about the Texas abortion ban: exceptions, regulations, court cases

After 30 years without a Democratic justice on the bench and with three incumbents facing reelection, O’Rourke is among those hoping that the Cox decision and the court’s May ruling against 20 women who sued over the state’s abortion bans will give Democrats their best chance yet at flipping a seat.

All three justices up for reelection — Devine, Jimmie Blacklock and Jane Bland — are being targeted by a new political action committee exclusively centered on the issue of abortion rights called the Find Out PAC.

Former Undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force Gina Ortiz-Jones, who was the Democratic nominee in 2018 for House District 23, a large district that stretches across Southwest Texas, said her outrage over the court’s Cox decision motivated her to start the PAC earlier this year.

She also emphasized that she felt Democrats had neglected the effect of Texas Supreme Court races, despite the court’s historical role in elevating the profiles of statewide political figures. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, Democratic U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett and Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn all served as justices on the court.

“These folks are elected; they can be unelected,” she said. “Republicans understand that the bench is a steppingstone for higher office, while we’re not even fighting for those seats.”

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Former Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones attends the national Ride to Decide reproductive freedom bus tour’s stop in Austin in July. The tour gave a storytelling platform to patients, health care providers, faith leaders and families affected by abortion bans in areas where reproductive health care has been limited since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

In social media posts, the PAC has painted statements like Devine’s 2012 speech as evidence that the incumbent justices can’t be trusted to rule impartially.

Though the PAC’s fundraising numbers would be a drop in the bucket in a nonjudicial statewide race — it reported $178,000 in total contributions this cycle, far too little to reach voters throughout the entire state — its digital ads and social media presence could make a small difference in the court’s races, as no candidate has raised more than $900,000. One of the PAC’s video ads has 441,000 views on Youtube.

The involvement of both pro- and anti-abortion rights groups in the state Supreme Court election highlights the tenuous balance between politics and neutrality in elections for state and local judges in Texas, which are partisan contests.

The Find Out PAC has sometimes blurred the lines between legislation and jurisprudence, pinning the state’s strict abortion ban squarely on the justices. In one ad, several plaintiffs in Zurawski v. Texas — the case in which 20 women and and two OB-GYNS sued the state over the ban — describe severe pregnancy complications they experienced after they were denied abortions of nonviable pregnancies.

“Why?” the women ask after recounting their experiences. “Because the Texas Supreme Court took away our freedoms.”

The court ruled that the women did not have standing to sue in May and affirmed the constitutionality of the state’s abortion bans. However, the pregnancy complications the women experienced occurred before they joined the lawsuit.

In an interview with the American-Statesman, Ortiz-Jones framed the Texas Supreme Court election as a referendum on abortion rights in line with the ballot initiatives that succeeded in Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio.

“We have tried to frame holding these judges accountable as our ballot initiative,” Ortiz-Jones said.

For Joe Pojman, director of anti-abortion group Texas Alliance for Life, the Find Out PAC is barking up the wrong tree.

“They lost in the Legislature, so now they’re trying to get the court to legislate from the bench, and I think they’re misrepresenting that issue to voters,” Pojman said in an interview with the Statesman. “This PAC is lobbying the wrong body.”

Texas Alliance for Life and Texas Right to Life have both endorsed the Republican slate of state Supreme Court justices, with the latter group donating thousands per candidate, according to campaign finance reports. Pojman asserted that Texas Alliance for Life endorses based on judicial philosophy, not on the likelihood a justice will share its political beliefs.

The odds

Because the majority of Texans are expected to vote for Republican nominee Donald Trump for president this year, Democrats running for the Texas Supreme Court will face much stronger headwinds than their GOP opponents, said Jon Taylor, a University of Texas San Antonio political science professor.

Taylor noted that the Supreme Court races lack the “splashy, statewide campaigns” that can lead to a down-ballot upset. However, he said, it is not impossible for a Democrat to win, and the state’s changing demography could make races more competitive in future years.

“I don’t think we’re there yet with a Democrat getting on the state Supreme Court,” he said. But “if it’s not this year, it will be 2026, ’28, ’30.”

Democrats’ best hope for a “lightning strike” is Christine Vinh Weems, a Houston state district judge challenging Devine, he said.

Weems has also made headlines for abortion-related rulings: After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade, she blocked Texas from enforcing laws from the 1930s and earlier that would have criminalized the procedure immediately. The ruling allowed abortion clinics to continue providing abortions before six weeks of pregnancy in Texas.

“What we all want, when it comes to the judiciary, is someone who’s going to be prepared and thoughtful, where you feel like you’ve got a fair shot walking in,” Weems told the Statesman.

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Christine Vinh Weems, a Houston state district court judge, has raised more than $360,000 in a bid to unseat Republican Texas Supreme Court Justice John Devine.

But Devine’s Achilles’ heel is that he has not only angered supporters of abortion rights with his prior activism; he has also drawn attacks from fellow Republicans, including in a bruising primary race against Judge Brian Walker of the 2nd Court of Appeals.

More: Texas Supreme Court justice seeking reelection under fire for absenteeism, ethics concerns

Walker amplified that Devine had missed more than half of the Supreme Court’s hearings that term. As the Statesman reported, Devine was absent for 60% of hearings between September and late February preceding the primary; he told Bloomberg News many of his absences were for campaign events. All but one of his colleagues had perfect attendance during the same period.

Devine made headlines for not recusing himself in a case against his former law partner, as The Texas Tribune reported, and for railing against his colleagues at a campaign event. In audio leaked to the Tribune, the justice called his fellow justices “brainwashed” and asserted that they would “sacrifice the republic for the sake of the (judicial) process.”

He eked out a win by less than 1 percentage point against Walker in March. The incumbent has also faced narrow margins in past general elections; he won by roughly 54% against his Democratic opponent in 2020.

Devine did not respond to repeated Statesman requests for comment.

Weems said Devine’s statements on political issues motivated her to run for the seat.

“If you are so pro-life that you are willing to violate the law and get arrested for it, then how is it not a conflict of interest?” she asked.

She also said she’s aware she faces an uphill battle.

“If we have an opportunity to flip a seat that has been Republican for decades and get a Democrat into this seat, it’s going to take a lot of people understanding and knowing about the Republican who currently occupies it,” she said.

Regardless of whether the Find Out PAC succeeds in its goal of ousting Devine and his colleagues this cycle, Ortiz-Jones says she will continue the effort in future elections.

“We can’t ever forget what the prize is,” Ortiz-Jones said. “Yes, three seats this time. But ultimately, it’s the direction of our state.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Democrats highlight abortion in bid to flip Texas Supreme Court seats

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