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September 5, 2007
Justice Linda Yañez announces campaign to bring balance to Texas' highest court.
Court of Appeals Justice and former Harvard Law School Instructor, Yañez set to run for Texas Supreme Court, Place 8
(McAllen, TX) - Court of Appeals Justice and former Harvard Law School Clinical Instructor, Linda Yañez, today announced her intention to run as a candidate for Place 8 of the Texas Supreme Court.
Yañez, a Democrat and Senior Justice on the 13th Court of Appeals, said she could no longer turn a blind eye to the "extreme right judicial activism" of our state's highest court. One of the highest profile examples of the current brand of judicial activism is the case of Duenez v F.F.P. "I authored the Court of Appeals' decision that affirmed the jury's verdict in favor of the brain damaged child victim of the drink driver, " Yañez noted. "The current members of our state's highest court reversed a jury verdict, ignored the Dram Shop Law, and overturned their own prior ruling in the same case after an election took place."
The Duenez case is just one symptom of the larger problem of the Supreme Court suffers from, Yañez argues. "One party rule has once again bred arrogance, group-think, and allowed the pay for -play politics that favors insurance companies and large firms to go unchecked." Yañez referred to recent studies authored by non-partisan consumer groups Texas Watch and Texans for Public Justice that indicate the all-Republican court has taken millions of dollars from insurance companies and corporate defense firms in recent years while ruling against consumers 84% of the time last term - up from 52% of the time in 2000. "The court's behavior gives regular Texans every reason to question if Justice is for sale on our state's highest court."
Yañez, a Democrat, was appointed to the Thirteenth Court of Appeals in 1993 by Governor Ann Richards - making her the first Hispanic woman to serve in an appellate court in history of Texas.