Ted Cruz may be the most outspoken Tea Party victor in Texas’s recent primary elections, but he’s not the lone far-right candidate the electorate promoted over an Austin-backed incumbent. Judge John Devine, a Tea Party-backed justice out of Houston, recently knocked off sitting GOP Supreme Court Justice David Medina, who’d received endorsements from Gov. Rick Perry (R) and nearly two dozen members of the Texas legislature. Garnering 53.3 percent of the vote, Devine’s victory appeared a sharp referendum on Medina’s six-year career on the state’s high court, which hasn’t had a single Democratic justice since 1999.Indeed, as there are no Democratic candidates set to challenge him for the Supreme Court position, Devine — a former district judge supported by ultra-conservative groups like the Eagle Forum and the Liberty Institute — is all but set to be the newest member of the state’s increasingly conservative court. This is Devine’s first victory on a state-wide stage, having lost over a half-dozen elections for assorted positions as both a state representative and member of Congress.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=96562