South Texas College of Law Annotations (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 2, Ed. 1, April/May, 2004 Page: 1 of 12
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April/May 2004
Inside:
The Bell Tolls for Thee p. 7
Volume XXXVI, Number II
Bar Review Courses p. 7
April/May 2004
Annotations
The Student Newspaper of South Texas College of Law
Second Year Student Aims at
State Representative Position
By Patrick Hennessey
Staff Writer
As students at South
Texas voted to elect their
new student representatives
recently, an entirely different
election of interest to South
Texas students was getting
underway. Second year stu-
dent James Rice Harris has
been busy kicking off his bid
to be elected to the state leg-
islature. The purpose of this
article is to give an overview
of what led Mr. Harris to run,
what he hopes to accom-
plish, and how this campaign
effects the South Texas Com-
munity.
As the fellow politi-
cal junkies who read this
know, a law was recently
passed in Texas that effects
how uncontested elections
are handled. If a candidate
for public office runs unop-
posed, they are essentially
given a pass to that particu-
lar office. Ideally, this creates
more efficiency in the elec-
tion process. Critics cite that
it gives incumbents an even
easier road to re-election.
This is exactly the problem
that Mr. Harris' campaign is
attempting to remedy. In dis-
trict 133, which covers a
good part of the western area
of Houston, Joe Nixon (R)
represents the interests of
Issues
Biooraphv
VoterXkfo
Contribute
J. R, Harris,
District 133 Campaign
mail a mesr i c«e liar iis.com
Fditual Ad verti*eme«t, Janes Rice Harris
District 133 CaopKifa; Janus. Rice Harris, Treasurer.
P.O. Bn S21262, Heos* , TX, T72U-1M2
the district in Austin. Since
the district votes primarily
Republican, no Democrat
has elected to run for the of-
fice. As a result, when the
ballots are cast in Novem-
ber, Joe Nixon will be
elected automatically.
Since this will be the first
election under the new
scheme, it is unclear at this
point whether Nixon will go
on the ballot unopposed, or
whether the ballot will sim-
ply show him as the winner.
To punctuate the problem
even further, somewhere
between 60-70% of all the
state reps, are running with
no opposition. Mr. Harris
believes that this is un-
healthy for our form of gov-
ernment. He brings up an
analogy, which should be fa-
miliar to anyone reading this
article. He believes that
elections are like law school
finals, or any finals for that
matter. This is where
elected representatives get
graded, and either pass or
fail. However, as matters
stand now, a significant ma-
jority of the reps will not be
graded this November. Fur-
thermore, Texas Monthly
Magazine has named Joe Nixon
one of the worst legislators in
the house. Which brings us to
the point at which J.R. Harris de-
cided to throw his hat into the
political ring.
Like a lot of students at
South Texas, or any law school
for that matter, J.R. Harris
watched with great interest the
public debate over Proposition
12 that raged in the fall of 2003.
Without going into the specifics
of the bill, it basically set a cap
on "non-economic" damages in
malpractice cases. These in-
clude the "mental anguish" type
of damages that many believe
juries had been too liberal in
awarding recently. Champions
of the Amendment to the state
constitution believed it was a
remedy for out of control
plaintiff's lawyers who were driv-
ing up the costs of insurance and
doing business in Texas. Op-
ponents believed it tool power
away from Texas courts, and
read like an insurance industry
wish list. The most important
thing to know is that prop 12
tended to be unpopular with law-
yers, and Joe Nixon authored
it. As J.R. Harris watched the
public debate, he was struck by
what he saw being revealed
about rep. Nixon. Among the
accusations that were leveled
against Nixon were that his con-
tact with the insurance industry
led to the appearance that he
was attempting to help political
allies, not do what was best for
Texas, or even his
constitutancy. As we know now,
Prop 12 passed by a slim mar-
gin, and is on its way to be-
coming a way of life in Texas.
But as he spent the break be-
tween the fall and spring se-
mesters, and idea began to fer-
ment with Mr. Harris. His re-
search told him that his state
rep was none other than Joe
Nixon, and that he would likely
be running for re-election un-
opposed. Furthermore, he be-
gan to find out that even among
Republicans, Joe Nixon was
hugely popular. As a result,
Harris believed he saw chinks
in Nixon's armor that meant he
was beatable. So to this end,
he began to learn all he could
about the process one has to
undertake to get on the ballot,
and get elected. Through long
hours of research, and several
fact-finding trips to Austin, Mr.
Harris began to warm up to the
idea of actually running for state
rep of district 133. Taking af-
ternoons and weekends
away from his studies, he
learned the ins and outs of
how to get on the ballot, what
the election campaign ethics
rules dictate, and he com-
piled voluminous data on the
districts voting patterns. He
also began to formulate what
he wanted his campaign to
be about. In a word, he de-
scribes it as choice. The first
major matter he had to ad-
dress was how he would get
on the ballot. His research
into state election laws told
him that he would need 500
signatures from voters in dis-
trict 133 who had not voted in
the Republican primary. As
an independent candidate he
enjoys certain advantages
and certain disadvantages in
running a campaign. In the
last several months, he has
set up a campaign website,
continued to hammer out the
details of his platform, and file
the all-important state paper-
work. All of this has been
done against the backdrop of
day-to-day law school rigors.
Harris has mobilized
his friends and family to help
Continued, Page 10
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Laird, Lori Magee. South Texas College of Law Annotations (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 2, Ed. 1, April/May, 2004, newspaper, 2004; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth144562/m1/1/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting South Texas College of Law.