Advocates Worry Newly Created TX Courts Will Side with Big Corporations

September 3, 2024

Advocates Worry Newly Created TX Courts Will Side with Big Corporations

AUSTIN, Texas - Statewide courts created by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature have begun their work as of Sept. 1, allowing corporations to bypass existing courts with democratically-elected judges in favor of judges hand-picked by Gov. Greg Abbott, Public Citizen warned today.

"Why bother judge-shopping when you can just invent a new court?" said Adrian Shelley, Texas director of Public Citizen.

The new courts include:

• The 15th Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over cases involving agencies like the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the state's oil and gas regulator, the Railroad Commission of Texas.
• The Business Court Judicial District's jurisdiction includes civil cases involving corporations in which the disputed amount is $10 million or more. Appeals from this court go to the new 15th Court of Appeals.
  These courts will allow corporations to avoid courts with judges elected in the state's population centers, areas that tend to lean Democratic.

Shelley continued: "There is an ongoing campaign to rip power away from institutions considered unfriendly to the agenda of the state's Republican majority. In addition to creating these courts, the legislature also passed HB 2627, the Death Star bill, that blocked cities and counties from creating local rules that are best for those communities, including on issues that concern public health, safety, and the environment. Just as state lawmakers view democratically elected city councils as standing in their way, especially in blue-leaning cities, they don't want the courts checking their power. Voters have already chosen the judges they want to head the courts in their communities; Greg Abbott is rejecting that choice by creating new courts that launch with unelected judges he picked. These maneuvers are not only a threat to public health and the environment but also undemocratic."