Texans for Public Justice, a judicial watchdog group, has just released a study showing the influence of campaign contributions on Texas Supreme Court Justices.

TPJ's findings reveal:

1) contributors were four times more likely than non-contributors to have their petitions for appeal to the court accepted;

2) the more money contributed, the higher the likelihood of an appeal petition being accepted; so, compared to acceptance rates for petitions filed by non-contributors:

 i) justices were 7.5 times more likely to accept petitions filed by contributors of at least $100,000;

ii) justices were 10 times more likely to accept petitions filed by contributors of more than $250,000.

To my mind, part of the explanation for this correlation is that the bigger contributors are likely to be the large firms staffed by some of the best lawyers in the state.  Presumably, the best lawyers produce a disproportionate share of the well-argued petitions for appeal.  Consistent with this, the TPJ found that Baker Botts, one of Texas's most prestigious firms, enjoyed an acceptance rate of 74 percent (and, by the way, contributed over 250,000 to justices' campaign funds).

Nevertheless, the appearance of corruption stemming from the correlation between contributions and appeal acceptance rates is disturbing.  Especially when dealing with a branch of government that ought to be immune from interest group or individual favoritism.

The report is available on the organization's website:  www.tpj.org.

-Adam Winkler
winkler@ucla.edu