Justice on Texas’ high court positive
One day after presiding over a hearing on the state’s mail-in ballot controversy via videoconference, Texas Supreme Court Justice Debra Lehrmann said she and her husband have tested positive for COVID-19.
“We began to exhibit symptoms last week, despite diligently complying with stay-at-home rules,” Lehrmann wrote on Twitter on Thursday. “Thankfully, this has not interfered with #SCOTX work, as the Court is working remotely. We are grateful for your thoughts & prayers.”
Her diagnosis marks the first known coronavirus case of a top state official. The justice did not respond to requests for an interview.
Their son, Jonathan, a Houston lawyer, his wife, Sarah, and their 6-month-old son Jack had been in town for a visit when Greg Lehrmann first had a cough, then woke up with a fever Monday. They’d been staying with their parents in Austin for about a week per month since March, Jonathan Lehrmann said.
Greg Lehrmann got tested that day and received his positive result Tuesday.
“You’re dealing with a national issue and following the news and staying home and taking it seriously,” Jonathan Lehrmann said. “The days leading up to our visit, they wouldn’t even go to the grocery store, they would wait for us to get there and let one of us do it. … So you’re doing all that, but it’s still shocking when it actually happens to you.”
Jonathan Lehrmann said both families had been socially distancing, hadn’t gone many places other than the grocery store and always wore face masks.
All four adults went through the same cycle of a cough, then fever, he said. He and his wife experienced only about a day of a fever with otherwise mild cold symptoms, he said, whereas his parents have continued to have fevers on-and-off, though seldom above 100.4 degrees, the threshold according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. None have had difficulty breathing.
“It feels like a bad cold — we don’t feel good, but the fever and fatigue haven’t come since the weekend,” he said. “It’s really cough and sinus and headache.”
Sarah Lehrmann was tested Tuesday and tested negative. Jonathan Lehrmann was tested Friday and is still awaiting his results. Their son is not showing symptoms.
“We’re following the quarantine protocol as if she had gotten a positive test,” Jonathan Lehrmann said.
He said it did not surprise him that his mother decided to participate in Wednesday’s hearing.
“I think she’d have to feel pretty bad to not (be there),” he said. “I just know she enjoys oral argument enough that if she can be there, she’ll be there.”
The 63-year-old Republican justice was appointed to the high court by Gov. Rick Perry in 2010 and later was elected to a sixyear term. She won re-election in 2016.
Prior to serving on the state Supreme Court, she was a state district judge in Fort Worth and served as a family law judge in Tarrant County for 23 years, according to her official biography on the Supreme Court website.