AUSTIN (Nexstar) – For the first time since being appointed to serve as the Texas Supreme Court’s Chief Justice in January, Jimmy Blacklock laid out the priorities he’d like to see the Texas legislature take up in 2025.
An across-the-board pay raise
Blacklock opened his priority list with a big ask of the Texas legislature: increase all judge pay by 30% this session to hire and retain the best talent. Blacklock said the judiciary hasn’t had a pay increase since 2013 and ranks 48th in pay for district judges.
“If these were just any government employees – those of you who know me, you know that I would be more likely to recommend a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) than a pay raise,” Blacklock said. “But we’re not talking about bureaucrats, we’re talking about the constitutional officers of a co-equal branch of government… prohibited by their ethical obligations from earning additional income.”
Increasing judicial impeachment proceedings
In Texas, the legislature has the power to remove judges through impeachment through a two-thirds vote of both houses. Blacklock said that power isn’t being used enough.
“The framers [of the Texas Constitution] knew that [judicial] elections might occasionally give us people who aren’t up for it – and their answer wasn’t ‘tough luck, vote them out in four years,’” Blacklock said. “They gave us tools to fix these problems in the very rare cases where they arise, and if we forget about these tools, or we don’t use them because we think it will be too difficult or it might make us look bad, then we’re not allowing our Constitution to operate the way it was designed.”
Allow non-lawyers to practice law in limited circumstances
Continuing the legacy of his predecessor Nathan Hecht, Blacklock argued that non-lawyers should be allowed to practice law in limited circumstances to lower legal costs for all Texans.
“Chief Justice Hecht often used this speech as an opportunity to demonstrate the court’s dedication to helping low-income Texans get basic legal services,” Blacklock said. “The court as a whole will keep up that effort, but my focus will be on systemic reforms that make legal services more affordable for everybody… one idea is to allow qualified non-lawyers to provide some basic legal services for a profit.”
Blacklock said he’s also looking towards other ways to lower legal costs if legislators are hesitant to allow non-lawyers to practice in limited capacity.
Keeping families together
Blacklock specifically asked legislators to repeal a very specific clause in family law, which he calls subsection O. The law specifically deals with the Department of Family Protection Services taking away children from parents with illegal substance use issues.
“It allows a parent’s rights to be terminated forever if the parent fails to check every box on a long list of things that the state wants them to do to get their child back,” Blacklock said. “But the thing is, there’s another provision right next to it in the code that allows termination of rights if the parent endangers the child… if the state can’t prove [endangerment], why on earth should we destroy that family?”
