Bill to cut appellate courts pulled
A controversial proposal to cut the number of Texas appellate courts has been withdrawn by the author, Houston Republican state Sen. Joan Huffman, because she says there isn't enough time left in session to pass it.
“Since the 87th Legislature concludes its business at the end of May, time does not allow for Senate Bill 11 to move further in the legislative process,” Huffman wrote in a letter obtained by Hearst Newspapers that was sent to fellow senators, including those on the Jurisprudence Committee, which she chairs and where the bill was heard last week.
Her office did not respond to a re- quest for further comment Friday.
Huffman had said the rework is necessary to help balance the workload among the courts. Under the current setup, which hasn’t been restructured in decades, the state frequently has to transfer cases from high-volume courts to lower-volume courts.
Democrats had criticized the bill as an attempt at partisan gerrymandering, after a blue wave
helped them win majorities on half of the state’s 14 appellate courts in 2018 and greatly increased diversity on the bench. The party, along with appellate court attorneys and judges, also worried that it would reduce the voting power of minorities.
“It’s the right call,” said Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, in a statement Friday. “The public hearing made it quite clear that the whole undertaking was fraught in both politics and process, and that it lacked support from judges, lawyers, and litigants. With so much other work to do, we can’t allow ourselves to get bogged down in this.”
Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, echoed Johnson’s sentiments and said he hopes that if the bill comes up again in future sessions, Huffman will be “open and transparent during the development phase of any new map and consult with all members of the Texas Senate, especially those who represent minority communities.”