TEXAS — Republicans have a firm grip on the highest civil court in the state — the Texas Supreme Court — with the party controlling all nine seats since 1998 and winning all three of the 2022 court races by at least 13 points. But a recent ruling by the court on reproductive rights and abortion has spurred Democrats to try and change that dynamic with the founding of a new political action committee and online campaigns meant to convince Texans that their highest court is endangering Texas women.
For the November election, 10 states are holding citizen-initiated ballot measures to protect abortion rights, with seven states already protecting abortion rights with ballot measures in past elections. For Democrats, the ballot box is the only way to fight back on Texas’ abortion ban enacted by the Texas Legislature after the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade.
Susan Hays, an attorney and longtime activist on abortion rights, said that unlike many other states, Texas does not have ballot initiatives or referendums that allow for residents to gather petitions to put a new law or state constitutional amendment on a ballot or repeal an existing law. Hays said Texas Democrats need to push more on the abortion rights issue with the state ballot options, so a PAC is a step in the right direction. “It has astounded me that the state party and big pocket donors aren’t glomming on to this strategy because it’s a way to put abortion on the ballot in Texas,” she said.
Hays, a former clerk for the Texas Supreme Court who has a residence in Alpine, said educating voters on these races can benefit the Democratic candidates up and down the ballot. “It’s a great strategy, and it could be something that not only helps win those seats but helps [Democratic U.S. Senate candidate] Colin Allred because it drives out votes if the message gets down to the people who matter the most,” she said.
Gina Ortiz Jones, a former contender for U.S. House District 23 that covers the tri-county area, said the recognition of the issue as crucial was obvious to Democrats. “We looked around and made some calls and said, ‘Hey, what are we doing about this?” Jones ended up co-founding a political action committee, Find Out PAC, that intends to address what many see as a lack of interest in the top judicial races, particularly since Texas is seen as a model in how to outlaw abortion. “We’re the epicenter for the number one issue in the country,” she said.
The impetus for Jones to start the PAC was a May 31 Texas Supreme Court ruling that she said refused to clarify the “medical emergency” exception to Texas’ total ban on abortions — when the life of the mother is at risk. The Center for Reproductive Rights and 22 plaintiffs in the lawsuit (Zurawski v. Texas) sought to force Texas to recognize the need for medically necessary abortions because they had all suffered healthcare crises and risks in situations where Texas doctors — intimidated by penalties up to life in prison for violating state law — refused to perform abortions. The court had also ruled in December against a woman facing life-threatening complications — Kate Cox — because her doctor refused to perform an abortion in a case where the fetus was found to have a chromosomal abnormality, trisomy 18, which in almost all cases results in miscarriage, stillbirth or only hours to days of survival after birth.
Much of the conflict in the Texas Supreme Court cases relied on the semantics of whether the state law’s requirement of “reasonable medical judgment” is clear enough for doctors to take the risk of performing an abortion — instead of what a lower court ruled that should be based more on a “good faith judgment” by the doctor.
“So, I read that opinion in the Kate Cox case, and I said, ‘These folks are elected, they can be unelected,’” Jones said. Find Out then set out to oppose the three Republican incumbents running in November — justices Jimmy Blacklock, John Devine and Jane Bland (Places 2, 4 and 6 respectively). Democratic opponents are DaSean Jones, Christine Weems and Bonnie Lee Goldstein (Places 2, 4 and 6 respectively).
The real revelation, she said, came after Find Out polled Texans on the issue and found that when those polled were educated about the court’s recent decisions, the margin of support for the Democratic candidates increased to where they were only about two points behind the Republican incumbents. “Across the board, it is when you tell them what the bench has done, which is they’ve taken these decisions away from the doctors and they’ve given them to politicians, and when you tell them about the suffering that has resulted because of that, those two things together moves the needle the most,” Jones said. After the polling, the PAC launched a digital campaign using the same messaging that increased the Democrats’ support in polling.
“We see people who have never been involved in politics or getting involved for the first time, specifically on this issue,” said Amanda Zurawski, the named plaintiff in the case against the state. “We see people who have historically always voted Republican voting Democratic specifically on this issue.”
Zurawski suffered life-threatening sepsis after doctors denied her a medically necessary abortion — because doctors detected fetal cardiac activity — after suffering a preterm prelabor rupture of membranes at 18 weeks of pregnancy. Doctors eventually intervened, but they had to reconstruct her uterus. She was in ICU for multiple days and was left with a damaged fallopian tube that impacted her fertility.
“I think a lot of people don’t know that state Supreme Court justices are elected, not appointed,” Zurwarski said. “It’s really important for people to pay attention to these races because these are the people who are making decisions for our state that are going to affect the way that we live our daily lives.”
Marfa Democratic activist Hilary Scruggs Beebe said most Texas Democrats are focused on Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid but that it’s important to look down the ballot and be aware of the impact those candidates could have on their lives. “It might take several more cycles for people to understand this issue and start associating the extremes with the Republicans,” she said.
The top of the ticket may be generating the most buzz, but Jones said she’s seeing more energy in her targeted races as well. “Now is definitely the right time to reach people and let them know that, hey, you’re fired up and that’s great, but here are these other races that you can be fired up about too.”
Jones said ensuring that reproductive rights issues are connecting with voters has been a priority for the Democratic Party nationwide, but that her work is honing in on races that haven’t gotten the attention they’ve needed in Texas. “I think one of my biggest concerns is always apathy, but the closer we get to this election, I think we’re actually seeing the opposite,” she said.
Zurwarski said it’s clear what damage the Texas Supreme Court justices have done in their interpretation of state law, and that needs to be top of mind for Texans when looking at the Republican candidates in November. “These three [Republican incumbents] in particular have made it very clear how they stand on certain issues that are not in line with what the general Texas population believes in,” she said. “And so I think if, if people find themselves not agreeing with them on some of their decisions, they need to vote them out because until we vote them out, they will continue to make these kinds of decisions that are not in alignment with our views and morals as Texans.”
