Justice Brian Walker is running against incumbent Justice John Devine in the 2024 Republican Primary for Place Four on the Texas Supreme Court.  The Texas Republican Primary will be held on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 with early voting taking place during the two weeks prior.

Other than the reasons why Justice Walker is running for the Supreme Court in general (which can be found on the other pages on this website), there are two main reasons why Justice Walker is running against Justice Devine specifically.

JUSTICE DEVINE IS ETHICALLY COMPROMISED

Justice Devine has a long history of ethical indiscretions while serving in office.  It is candidly an embarrassment, and these indiscretions are so pathetically bad that the Democrats could use them to lose us this seat in the upcoming general election.  In fact, Justice Walker thinks that Justice Devine's indiscretions are terrible enough that if Devine secures the GOP nomination in this presidential election cycle (when we had three Supreme Court judges only win the last time by 53%), that it could pose problems for our entire statewide Republican slate.  If the Democrats exploit some of Devine's worst indiscretions, it could lead to a "Clayton Williams" scenario.  If you remember Texas history, Williams was polling at much higher numbers than Ann Richards but ended up losing his gubernatorial election to her because of statements he made that were exploited by the Democrats during the tail end of the election.  Could history repeat itself?  You be the judge!

JUSTICE DEVINE IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE JUDGE!

The first reason is because Justice Devine is NOT a "conservative judge."  He might be conservative ideologically but he is constantly attempting to get the court to not follow the law.  If you read just a few of his opinions (which are mostly dissents), Devine is the consummate "outcome determinative" judge and is almost wholly "results oriented" in his judicial approach.  He appears to decide who he wants to win in the specific cases (or what result will help him the most politically) and he clearly attempts to distort and manipulate the law in order to get there.  This is why he is notorious for writing dissents and concurrences regularly.  Because he is constantly trying to get his colleagues to ignore the law.  And, no matter how you characterize it, that does not make him "the most conservative judge on the court!"  On the contrary, that makes him a judicial activist (albeit one who typically comes from the right).  Candidly, Justice Devine should seek election to the legislature.  Not re-election to the judiciary.  Anyone who characterizes him as a conservative judge is either not a lawyer, is clueless about his opinion writing, and/or is clueless about the concept of judicial restraint (following the law even if the judge doesn't necessarily like it).