Judge Erica Hughes ousted Engelhart and attorney Amber Boyd-Cora ousted Kelly

Local political and legal experts say judges’ qualifications, experiences and temperaments do not often impact the outcome of judicial races in the Houston area, because there are 50-plus seats on the Harris County ballot, those races typically get little coverage in the news media and many voters do not know much about incumbent judges or their opponents.

Judges Mike Engelhart and Robert Schaffer have served on their civil court benches in Harris County since 2009, and both received high marks in the most recent judicial evaluation poll conducted by the Houston Bar Association. So did Justice Peter Kelly, who has held a place on Texas’ 1^st Court of Appeals since 2018.

Justice Peter Kelly (left) lost to attorney, Amber Boyd-Cora

All three lost their Democratic primary elections on Tuesday, and by wide margins. The closest of those races involved Schaffer, who received less than 45% of the vote in his loss against TaKasha Francis.

“It is disappointing that the voters did not value my experience and hard work over the past five years,” Kelly said.

South Texas College of Law professor Charles “Rocky” Rhodes said judges’ qualifications, experiences and temperaments do not often impact the outcome of judicial races in the Houston area, because there are 50-plus seats on the Harris County ballot, those races typically get little coverage in the news media and many voters do not know much about incumbent judges or their opponents. Voters often make their selections based on political party affiliation and, in the case of Democratic primaries, based on a candidate’s name, place on the ballot, gender, ethnicity or even perceived ethnicity inferred from their name, according to Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

Along those lines, the losses Tuesday by Engelhart, Kelly, Schaffer and some other sitting judges reflect a trend that has emerged in the Houston area during the last decade. The electorate in Democrat-leaning Harris County, and particularly those who vote in Democratic primaries, clearly favors women and in many cases African-American women.

Judge Erica Hughes (left) ousted Judge Mike Engelhart

Engelhart, Kelly and Schaffer, who are white men, each lost to a Black woman after filing lawsuits challenging their opponents’ eligibility to appear on the ballot, with Judge Erica Hughes beating Engelhart and attorney Amber Boyd-Cora beating Kelly. Justice Gordon Goodman of the 1^st Court of Appeals also lost his Democratic primary to a Black woman, Brendetta Scott.

Longtime civil court Judge R.K. Sandill also lost to a woman, Denise Brown, while fellow criminal court Judge Ramona Franklin and family court Judge Julia Maldonado lost to other women in their primaries. Civil court Judge Brittanye Morris, a Black woman, lost her primary against Tracy D. Good, a Black man.

Eddie Rodriguez, the campaign manager for Brown, said voters tend to have more trust in female judicial candidates, and he expects that to become even more of a factor in the future because the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature made abortion illegal in the state in 2022 after the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision from 1972 was overturned by the United States Supreme Court. And women make up the majority of Democratic primary voters in Harris County, according to Rottinghaus.

“We know that historically, when there are women on the ballot, women voters will vote for them,” Rottinghaus said.

Mary Flood, an attorney, legal media consultant and former legal journalist who works for Androvett Legal Media, said the Democratic primary results illustrate a “tragically flawed” system for electing judges, whom she said have greater control over voters’ lives than they might realize because they can make decisions that impact their finances and family dynamics. There were cases in which “ignorant voters just picked female names,” she said, which could result in less-qualified, less-capable and less-fair judges presiding over Houston-area courts.

System on trial

Flood said she favors the idea of overhauling how judges are selected in Texas. Many other states have judges who are initially appointed by commissions, based on qualifications and merit, and they can subsequently be replaced by voters based on reviews of their performance.

“What happened this week has happened before in Harris County and we’ve lost some of our best jurists and sometimes replaced them with mediocrity or worse,” Flood said. “The problem is not just the ignorant voter picking a gender or familiar name or party affiliation. It’s the way we elect judges in Texas.”

Rodriguez and Kelly said Texas’ current system of electing judges is better than the alternatives, with Rodriguez saying he puts more trust in the voting public than in state lawmakers or Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Hughes also questioned the need and desire to change the system, saying no eyebrows were raised before women and African Americans such as herself started winning judicial elections, with bench seats having historically been controlled predominantly by white men.

As for well-respected and highly-rated judges being ousted by voters, Hughes said that comes with the territory in Texas. She also said she’s grateful the system allows for poorly performing judges to be replaced every few years.

“The majority should make the decision,” Hughes said. “That works in our executive branch and legislative branch. It should work in the judicial branch.

“The bench belongs to the people of Harris County or whatever court jurisdiction you’re in,” she added.

Hughes, who was elected to a Harris County criminal court at law in 2018 and was appointed as a federal immigration judge in 2021, said her qualifications and experience contributed to her win against Engelhart. She also acknowledged that being a Black woman who was listed above him on the ballot helped as well.

Hughes also said she thinks lawsuits filed by Engelhart, Kelly and Schaffer, who challenged their opponents’ eligibility to appear on the primary ballot, backfired against them. Engelhart questioned the authenticity of signatures on Hughes’ petitions to be on the ballot, Kelly claimed Boyd-Cora did not properly cite her experience in her application to be on the ballot, and Schaffer questioned whether Francis had enough recent experience as a practicing attorney to qualify as a judicial candidate.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of Boyd-Cora and Hughes. Francis was kept on the ballot by a temporary trial court ruling leading up to Election Day, with a trial set for later this month and the possibility she could be disqualified from appearing on the ballot for the general election in November, although such a decision would not make Schaffer a primary winner by default.

Kelly acknowledged the lawsuits could have had a negative impact on him and the other sitting judges, partly because they are all white men and there was a perception they could have been motivated by race because they were going against Black women.

Engelhart and Schaffer declined interview requests through their mutual campaign manager.

“It was possible that there was a negative backlash based on a misdescription, a misunderstanding, of what the actions were actually about,” Kelly said.

Sandill, who did not respond to an interview request made through his campaign, had a favorable pre-election rating from the Houston Bar Association along with Engelhart, Kelly and Schaffer. Franklin, Goodman, Maldonado and Morris – the latter of whom ousted highly-rated Judge Daryl Moore in a Democratic primary in 2020 – each had unfavorable ratings in the poll, which is based on a survey of member attorneys.

“Local judicial races end up not getting very much voter attention,” said Rhodes of the South Texas College of Law. “As a result, most voters come in and make their decision based on the names without really understanding the background, qualifications, experience and judicial temperaments of the individuals that they’re voting for.”