Dollar Docket

Do Two Gramms Tip the Scales?
Having recently unveiled a tentative $86.5 million settlement to claims that she and other Enron directors were asleep at the wheel of that $60 billion fraud, GOP VIP Wendy Gramm is facing claims that another company ran amok on her watch.


Read Dollar Docket #36

Dollar Docket

Chief Legacy:
Weekley Calendar, Agenda Will Still Run the Court
Chief Justice Tom Phillips’ confederates should have left him alone last month to draft his resignation in peace. Instead, they hammered the court with briefs that are reminders of the stains that special interests will leave on the chief’s legacy.

Read Dollar Docket #35

Dollar Docket

Two-Timer Courtship
Spring is in the air and some romantic donors are choosing between two candidates for the only Supreme Court seat being contested in Tuesday’s Republican primary. Other contributors are playing it safe by showering money on both candidates.


Read Dollar Docket #34

Dollar Docket

Covering the TAB:
Secret Business Donors Demand Impunity, Again
The Texas Association of Business is seeking to quash legal probes into its $1.9 million “issue ads,” which helped tip the balance of power in the Texas House in 2002. Related business interests have given $1.6 million to Texas’ current high-court justices, supplying 15 percent of their total war chests.

Read Dollar Docket #33

Dollar Docket

Misjudging The Market
As conflicts engulf Wall Street, the Wall Street Journal reported this month that Texas Supreme Court inaction let stand a dangerous securities opinion with national repercussions.



Read Dollar Docket #32

Dollar Docket

Mister Brister:
Perry Appoints Judge With Biggest War Chest
If Governor Perry’s sole criteria for judicial appointments was to promote that member of his party who raised the biggest appeals court war chest in recent years, then he would have appointed Scott Brister to be chief of Houston’s 14th Court of Appeals in 2001, and replace Supreme Court Justice Craig Enoch last month.

Read Dollar Docket #31

Dollar Docket

Hard Drive:
Ruling-Class 'Friends' Target Class Actions
Business-class supporters of Texas’ High Court want the justices to defang consumer class-action lawsuits by reversing two lower courts that certified a class of consumers who bought 1.8 million allegedly faulty Compaq computers.


Read Dollar Docket #30

Dollar Docket

Federal Court To Judge Secrecy:
Supreme Court's secret voting is challenged
Plaintiffs in Aguirre v. Chief Justice Thomas Phillips argue that the public has a First-Amendment right to know about fundamental decisions of elected officials—including the right to know how Texas justices vote when they determine who gets access to Texas’ civil court of last resort.

Read Dollar Docket #29

Dollar Docket

Weekley Homes Comes on Home
When David Weekley Homes filed an appeal in Texas’ High Court last month, it was as if the builder had entered one of its own custom-built homes.




Read Dollar Docket #28

Dollar Docket

Party Pooper:
Republican Militants Wail To the Chief
Texas Republican Party militants are launching a counterrevolution against heretical party funders and elected officials who dare advocate judicial reform at a time when a newly GOP-controlled Texas has the best judiciary that money can buy.

Read Dollar Docket #27

Dollar Docket

Court's Rehab in Lege's Hands
The Texas Legislature must approve significant judicial reforms or sentence the state judiciary to at least two more years of festering public distrust. A frustrated Chief Justice Tom Phillips told lawmakers this month, "Our partisan, high-dollar judicial selection system has diminished public confidence in our courts."

Read Dollar Docket #26

Dollar Docket

Business Judges Open for Business
A week after Sandra Day O'Connor swore in five newly elected Texas Supreme Court justices on January 6, high court candidates filed final 2002 campaign finance reports that provide the last word on who really won the election.


Read Dollar Docket #25

Dollar Docket

High Court Candidates Raise $1 Million A Seat
Even with three candidates sitting out the arms race, 10 surviving major-party candidates for five Texas Supreme Court spots raised an average of $1 million per seat.


Read Dollar Docket #24

Dollar Docket

$4 Million and Counting:
Lawyers are top donors to judicial candidates
Ten surviving major-party candidates seeking five Texas Supreme Court seats already raised $4 million for the November election, even though the chief justice candidates largely abstained. Lawyers with cases before the court still are the top donors.

Read Dollar Docket #23

Dollar Docket

VIP VP:
Halliburton’s Home Court Gives Workers the Shaft
In an over-the-top business power grab, Texas’ High Court last month overturned two lower courts to force a Halliburton employment dispute out of court and into arbitration (In re Halliburton Co.).


Read Dollar Docket #22

Dollar Docket

Put Court-Reform Walk In 'Tort-Reform' Talk
New voices joining the call for judicial reform should consider stanching the special-interest judicial money flowing from their own backyards.




Read Dollar Docket #21

Dollar Docket

Worst Possible System:
Blindfolded Voters Pick Gagged Judges
Dallas State District Judge Margaret Keliher is flouting Texas’ Code of Judicial Conduct, which requires judges to resign from judicial office when they launch a contested run for a non-judicial office. This rule does not appear to require Judge Keliher’s resignation because she is running for Dallas County judge. In fact, however, Judge Keliher is hiding her indiscretion behind a misnomer.

Read Dollar Docket #20

Dollar Docket

Trials v. Tort Lobby In Republican Primary
In an unusual twist, the Republican primary will pit trial-lawyer money against the business tort lobby in a key Texas Supreme Court race .




Read Dollar Docket #19

Dollar Docket

Vinson & Elkins Goes AWOL:
High Court's Top Donor Bucks Disclosure Law
Reports filed with the state by the PAC of the Texas Supreme Court’s No. 1 donor do not contain legally required disclosures on how that PAC spent $551,516 in political funds last year.


Read Dollar Docket #18

Dollar Docket

Enron Unplugged:
Close Friend of Court Goes Down In Flames
The Texas Supreme Court justices’ single largest source of corporate donations has collapsed in a pile of investor fraud and deception—and some of the wreckage could end up back before the court.


Read Dollar Docket #17