{"id":13056,"date":"2023-08-04T20:38:45","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T20:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13056"},"modified":"2023-08-04T20:38:45","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T20:38:45","slug":"in-texas-republican-judicial-primaries-do-hispanic-sounding-surnames-spell-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13056","title":{"rendered":"In Texas Republican judicial primaries, do Hispanic-sounding surnames spell loss?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by<\/em> Emma Platoff<\/em><\/a> and Alexa Ura,<\/a><\/em> Texas Tribune<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hispanics rarely win seats on Texas’ two highest courts. Some experts blame the “surname challenge.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Justice Eva Guzman, Supreme Court of Texas, Judge Elsa Alcala, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and Judge Michelle Slaughter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Elsa Alcala<\/a> showed up to the straw poll confident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a ways to go before the 2012 Republican primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8, and she believed she was the better candidate. She had a strong resume, the advantage of the incumbency and the support of her party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And unlike her opponent, Ken Law, she\u2019d shown up at the Tarrant County Candidate Fair that February day in Fort Worth. Along with her husband and three kids, she had set up a table and handed out push cards to attendees, urging them to re-elect her to Texas\u2019 highest criminal court. Law had no one there on his behalf, Alcala noted, and he lacked the advantages of incumbency. He had also been fined $4,100<\/a> by the Texas Ethics Commission a few years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Alcala believes Law had one advantage: his last name. “Law” is simple, familiar, fitting for a judge and, perhaps most importantly, sounds Anglo-Saxon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When voting closed, Law had won by more than 10 percentage points. The organizer of the event tracked down Alcala and apologized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was just shocking \u2014 it was a shock to my confidence,\u201d Alcala said. \u201cI thought to myself that if the choice was between the name \u2018Ken Law\u2019 versus the name \u2018Elsa Alcala\u2019 in front of an uneducated voter, that I was going to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many would say her doubts were well-founded. In Texas, not many Hispanic judges have won election to the state’s highest courts \u2014 the state Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals. A leading theory among GOP pollsters, operatives and political observers is that those candidates are disadvantaged by their last names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The system of statewide, partisan judicial elections means that candidates have to muster broad appeal, but the little attention paid to their campaigns means voters rarely know who the candidates are. With no information about the candidates they\u2019re choosing between, voters often lean toward the names that sound more familiar \u2014 the names more like their own, experts said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among Republican primary voters in Texas, that generally means the names that sound white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy bottom line is that Hispanic candidates start out at a slight disadvantage against non-Hispanic candidates because of their name,\u201d said Mike Baselice, a longtime pollster for Republicans in Texas. \u201cAn unfunded or a very low-funded campaign by a Hispanic Republican for either the state Supreme Court or the Court of Criminal Appeals is a tough proposition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No Hispanic judge has ever won election to the state\u2019s two highest courts without first being appointed to their seat by a governor. And in the history of the two nine-member courts, there have been only seven Hispanic judges, with no more than three serving simultaneously. That’s in a state where Hispanics now make up about 39 percent of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawyers in a recent federal lawsuit<\/a> challenging Texas\u2019 system of statewide judicial elections have attributed that lack of electoral success to the \u201csurname challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Skeptics argue that a Hispanic-sounding surname didn\u2019t prevent Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman<\/a> from winning two full terms. But the challenge is part of the reason Alcala won\u2019t seek re-election in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought it was likely that I would draw an opponent because someone would view my Hispanic unfamiliar surname as a liability,\u201d she wrote recently in a deposition for the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd the risk I might lose the campaign was just not worth it to me,\u201d she told the Tribune this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A history of underrepresentation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alcala did win re-election in 2012. Law was forced off the ballot because he failed to gather enough valid signatures on his petition to run, leaving Alcala unopposed in the primary race. Now, there are two Hispanic judges on the courts. After Alcala finishes her term this year, that number could dwindle to one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both courts are entirely Republican, meaning judges are effectively elected in Republican primaries. But even with the advantage of incumbency \u2014 and the support of the Republican establishment \u2014 it\u2019s not uncommon for sitting Hispanic judges to lose to white challengers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a phenomenon, experts say, that in Republican judicial primaries comes down to fundraising and a name. Though they’re statewide officials, these judges are relatively unknown to most voters, and the candidates rarely have enough money to introduce themselves to voters in a state of 28 million people. Often, the only information voters have are the names on the ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, you\u2019re going to vote for the person that has a similar last name that maybe your neighbor has,\u201d said George Antuna, co-founder of the Hispanic Republicans of Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s proved to be a hefty challenge for most Hispanic Republicans in statewide races, largely because only about 9 percent of Republican primary voters have Hispanic-sounding surnames, said Baselice, the Republican pollster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Candidates can make up for that handicap if they raise enough money to barnstorm the state and get their names out, Baselice said. Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz<\/a>, who was first elected in a high-profile 2012 primary runoff, is a prime GOP example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But statewide judicial races generally don\u2019t attract the same kind of attention or campaign money needed to reach voters in a massive state with about 20 different media markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn overwhelming majority of Republican primary voters are Anglos,” said Mark Jones, a Rice University political science professor who has studied judicial elections in Texas. “If all they know about the candidates is that one has an Anglo surname and one has a Latino surname, there\u2019s a tendency among voters \u2014 given no other information \u2014 to vote for the candidate that shares their [ethnicity].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, this has resulted in several incumbent Hispanic judges losing their seats in low-profile statewide primary races. That trend is particularly pronounced among Supreme Court justices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xavier Rodriguez<\/a>, a Texas Supreme Court appointee of former Gov. Rick Perry<\/a>, lost the 2002 Republican primary to Steven Wayne Smith<\/a>. In 2012, former Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina<\/a> lost the seat he\u2019d held for eight years to John Devine<\/a>, even though Medina had endorsements from the Texas governor and attorney general. (Medina and his wife had been indicted in a 2008 arson case, but a district attorney threw out the charges and the foreman of the grand jury that reviewed them called the charges politically motivated.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Houston lawyers said at the time<\/a> that Devine told them he targeted Medina in particular because he thought \u201cI can beat a guy with a Mexican last name.\u201d Devine has denied<\/a> those allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 2000 to 2016, only one other incumbent on the Texas Supreme Court was defeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “surname challenge”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Texas is not the only state that elects its highest judges in a partisan statewide system, but that practice has long drawn criticism. Former justices themselves are among the most vocal critics of the system, arguing it puts judges \u2014 who must rule impartially \u2014 in the difficult position of having to run with a partisan bent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filed on behalf of seven Hispanic voters and a community organization, a federal lawsuit<\/a> challenges the system on different grounds. Statewide judicial elections, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argue, dilute the voting power of Texas Hispanics. That dilution is compounded, an expert for the plaintiffs argues, by the “surname challenge” in which a large number of white voters will not support candidates with Hispanic-sounding surnames even if they are the incumbents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers have pointed to the overwhelming underrepresentation of Hispanic judges on Texas\u2019 two highest courts as proof that the current system makes it more difficult for Hispanics to elect their candidates of choice. Voters\u2019 preferred candidates don\u2019t have to be of their same race or ethnicity, but it\u2019s often the case for Latino voters, attorneys argue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the state’s lawyers in the case argue that partisanship \u2014 and not race \u2014 explains the makeup of the courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps their best argument is Guzman\u2019s electoral success. When she sailed to a seat on the state Supreme Court in 2010, she became the first Latina elected to statewide office in Texas. She also threw a wrench in the plaintiffs\u2019 case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn inconvenient fact for the plaintiffs is that following fact: Eva Guzman has won two statewide elections,\u201d Patrick Sweeten, the state\u2019s lead attorney in the voting rights lawsuit, told the court earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, Guzman was the highest vote-getter in a Texas Republican primary, winning 1.27 million votes in her victory over Dallas attorney Joe Pool. A prolific fundraiser who pulled in an unusual $1.1 million for her 2016 campaign, her success is often touted as evidence that Hispanic Republicans do not face race-related obstacles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guzman herself says \u201ca lot of other forces other than surname\u201d \u2014 mostly the nature of statewide races that require candidates to reach millions of voters \u2014 impact the outcome of judiciary races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that we have a party that will not support Hispanics,\u201d Guzman told The Texas Tribune. \u201cBut I think judicial Hispanic candidates have a much higher burden when it comes to voter contact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Alcala said even the comparatively slight difference in visibility between Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals races can matter when voters cast their ballots. Court of Criminal Appeals candidates are lower-profile, forcing more uninformed voters to end up making choices based on names, Alcala said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201csurname challenge\u201d may be tested in next week\u2019s Republican primary for Alcala\u2019s seat on the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the three-way Republican race to replace her, there\u2019s one minority candidate: a Latina who served as president of the Hispanic Law Students Association at the University of Houston Law Center and who helped found the Galveston chapter of the Hispanic Republicans of Texas. Of the three candidates, she has the most cash on hand and the most high-profile endorsements, including one from the powerful conservative group Empower Texans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she\u2019s never felt like race was a disadvantage in prior elections, but she does have one notable advantage over other Hispanic candidates: Her name is Michelle Slaughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She won this year’s Tarrant County straw poll in a landslide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article appeared originally on Texas Tribune with the title\u00a0 I<\/a>n T<\/em>exas Republican judicial primaries, do Hispanic-sounding surnames spell loss?<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Emma Platoff and Alexa Ura, Texas Tribune Hispanics rarely win seats on Texas’ two highest courts. Some experts blame the “surname challenge. Elsa Alcala showed up to the straw poll confident. There was a […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[81,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-13056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-latino-vote","9":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13058,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13056\/revisions\/13058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}