Retooling Texas' Judiciary

Should Texas elect its judges? In one of its anonymous editorials of February 12, 2009, Retooling Texas’ Judiciary, the Austin American-Statesman invokes the warning to legislature by chief justice Wallace Jefferson of the Texas Supreme Court about the idea that the federal court will soon force the state to change the rule to select the state judges.
In this editorial Wallace Jefferson states two problems with the current system to choose judges. The first problem is about the finance of campaigns. The majority of contributors to judicial campaigns are lawyers. These people come before the courts asking for favorable decisions in cases. The second problem is about the qualification of the judges who get elected. For Wallace Jefferson most judges get elected because of their party affiliation. He argues that the judiciary system should be politically neutral. The idea to reform the state’s partisan election system for choosing judges has always been evoked in Texas as well as across the nation, but it is the political parties who are most resistant to the change. Change may be coming, warns Jefferson: “It is time for Texas to set a high standard for judicial selection,” and judicial candidates should not be included in straight ticket voting.
I think this article is worth reading because in some way it shows the embarrassing state of the Texas judiciary system. And the editorial concludes that the chief justice is right and the legislature should act. Is the Texas judiciary system so broken?