U.S. District Court Continues Hold On Five Deputy Voter Registrar Restrictions

Today, U.S. Southern District Court Judge Gregg Costa denied the state of Texas' request to stay an injunction issued earlier this month. That injunction prevents Texas from enforcing several of its restrictive deputy voter registrar laws.

On Thursday Aug. 2, U.S. Southern District Court Judge Gregg Costa issued an injunction to suspended five provisions of Texas law that place restrictions on groups and individuals who work to register new voters. These provisions place restrictions on groups like the League of Women Voters, making it significantly more difficult for them to register voters. The provisions are suspended until a trial in the Voting for America v. Hope Andrade case on whether the entire law violates the 1993 National Voter Registration Act can be held. The Houston Chronicle has more:

Under Judge Gregg Costa injunction, Texas may not require that deputy voter registrars live in Texas, a law Voting for America said prevented it from organizing voter registration drives.

It also may not prevent deputy registrars from registering voters who live outside their county; prevent organizations from firing or promoting employees based on the number of voters registered; prevent organizations from making photocopies of completed voter registration forms for their records; or prevent deputy registrars from mailing completed applications.

On Friday Aug. 3, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a motion to stay Judge Costa's order to suspended those provisions, arguing an injunction would lead to confusion and possibly disenfranchise more voters if third party volunteers improperly handled registration.

Costa wrote in his opinion that "no other state of which this Court is aware has gone as far as Texas in creating a regulatory web that controls so many aspects of third-party voter registration activity." Costa said that voter-registration fraud remains illegal without the new laws: "Defendants have not demonstrated that the challenged provisions are needed to buttress the direct tool of preventing fraud by prosecuting those who actually engage in fraud."

Mitt Romney Set To Pick Paul Ryan As Running Mate

Romney will announce Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his VP choice on Saturday morning at the beginning of a four-day bus tour through key battleground states, the campaign said Friday night.

The Weekly Standard reported earlier Friday that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has been asked to be ready to make the case for Ryan beginning Saturday.

Mitt Romney told a group of seniors last January that “we will never go after Medicare or Social Security. We will protect those programs.” Barely a month earlier, Romney became a strong backer of the Paul Ryan budget which would essentially end Medicare by privatizing it into a corporate insurance company voucher program.

Mitt Romney is trying to “change his tune,” DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in response to Romney's declared support for the Ryan budget plan as a way to save Medicare. “We had always assumed he’d be saying anything to voters in the Sunshine State to get elected.”

Democrats highlighted policies Romney has supported in order to argue that his promise to protect the two entitlement programs is “patently dishonest.” In addition to his support for Paul Ryan, his own plan creates a voucher Medicare system, which in their phrase leaves traditional Medicare to “wither on the vine.” And beyond Medicare, Romney’s support for a Cut, Cap, and Balance approach to the budget would result in drastic cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Romney has been careful in his campaign comments to leave the door open for the Ryan plan, or a similar reform effort, by hinting that in order to “protect” Medicare it might be necessary to reform it.

“So if I’m president, I will protect Medicare and Social Security for those that are currently retired or near retirement,” Romney assured the seniors he spoke to, adding, “and I’ll make sure we keep those programs solvent for the next generations coming along.”

Romney and Ryan propose to privatize Medicare by converting it into a corporate insurance voucher program for everyone younger than 5o years of age.

How committed to ending Medicare is the Republican Party? Committed enough to resurrect in 2012 Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare voucher plan of 2011, the plan that enraged seniors and helped Democrats win a special election in the House.

DCCC Video - Broken Promises
Constituents Erupt Over House Republicans Voting to End Medicare

The Republican Party endorsed Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) sharply conservative 2011 budget bill when all but four Republicans in the U.S. House voted for and passed the bill before the 2011 Easter recess.

Breaking a promise Republicans made during the 2010 mid-term election to "protect Social Security and Medicare" Ryan's budget bill deeply cuts Medicare funding and replaces with a private insurance premium voucher program.

Ryan's Republican budget eliminates Medicare, as it exists today, and guts Medicaid as well as the rest of the government. The budget also gives additional huge tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires plus further big corporate taxpayer handouts to pharma, insurance and petrochemical industries. The Republican budget explodes deficit spend in the near term and doesn't actually balance revenues and spending until the year 2040.

Collin County's Republican Congressional representatives Sam Johnson, Tx-3rd and Ralph Hall, Tx-4th voted for Ryan's bill.

Threat To North Texas Water Supply From Tar Sands Oil Pipeline

From Nation of Change by Christine Leclerc

Just when it seemed that the Keystone XL pipeline was on hold, TransCanada Corp. segmented the project and the U.S. government fast-tracked the environmental review process. This allows TransCanada to begin construction on the southern part of the Keystone XL this summer.

With a nonviolent direct action camp that started July 27, 2012 in East Texas, grassroots opponents are working on a construction project of their own: Tar Sands Blockade, a coalition of landowners, community members, students, and others dedicated to stopping the pipeline through direct action.

Building in Segments to Get around Opposition

The Keystone XL pipeline was originally proposed as a single line that went from Alberta to Texas. However, in February, TransCanada announced that the southern part of the Keystone XL had been reconceived as a separate Gulf Coast Project Seaway pipeline.

The Seaway pipeline is an aging 36-year old low pressure crude pipeline that passes through Collin, Grayson, Rockwall, and Kaufman counties, and crosses tributaries to Lake Lavon and other water sources supplying the DFW area.

In this plan, tar sands crude will travel 500-miles between Cushing, Oklahoma and refineries on the Gulf Coast. Tar sands is far more toxic, acidic, and corrosive than conventional crude since it has to be liquified with natural gas condensate and other chemicals to dilute it enough to push it through a highly pressurized pipeline.

The Seaway pipeline will be developed by Enbridge Inc., the operator responsible for the largest and most expensive tar sand spill in U.S. history, in a 50/50 partnership with Enterprise Partners. The toxic Enbridge spill on the Kalamazoo River in Michigan was due to a rupture in an aging, 43-year old repurposed pipeline, not unlike Seaway. Now, two years and $720 million later, people along the Kalamazoo are sick and their property is ruined.

DFW's already scarce water supply will be at risk with the transport of tar sands crude through this aging, repurposed pipeline.

Rita Beving, North Texas organizer for Public Citizen, talks about the Seaway Pipeline project - June 23, 2012

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Rachel Maddow reports on the NTSB review of the 2010 Enbridge oil spill that dumped tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River, requiring two years of futile clean-up efforts and ultimately becoming the single most expensive onshore oil spill in U.S. history. July 10, 2012

TransCanada spokesperson David Dodson characterizes the Gulf Coast pipeline as important for the energy security of the United States.

According to Dodson, domestic producers “do not have access to enough pipeline capacity to move the production to the large refining market along the U.S. Gulf Coast.”

In March, U.S. President Barack Obama expedited the review process for pipelines going from Oklahoma to Texas. “In part due to rising domestic production, more oil is flowing in than can flow out, creating a bottleneck that is dampening incentives for new production while restricting oil from reaching state-of-the-art refineries on the Gulf Coast,” reads the president's March 22 memo.

In a whopping 86-word sentence, the president goes on to explain that all agencies are to “coordinate and expedite their reviews, consultations, and other processes as necessary to expedite decisions related to domestic pipeline infrastructure projects.”

Following the President's order to expedite the review process, the Sierra Club, Oklahoma and Texas landowners, and the Texas communities of Reklaw, Gallatin, and Alto filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), which issues water permits.

Restrictions On Deputy Voter Registrars At Issue

Last Thursday, U.S. Southern District Court Judge Gregg Costa issued an injunction to suspended five provisions of Texas law that place restrictions on groups and individuals who work to register new voters. These provisions place restrictions on groups like the League of Women Voters, making it significantly more difficult for them to register voters. The provisions are suspended until a trial in the Voting for America v. Hope Andrade case on whether the entire law violates the 1993 National Voter Registration Act can be held. The Houston Chronicle has more:

Under Judge Gregg Costa injunction, Texas may not require that deputy voter registrars live in Texas, a law Voting for America said prevented it from organizing voter registration drives.

It also may not prevent deputy registrars from registering voters who live outside their county; prevent organizations from firing or promoting employees based on the number of voters registered; prevent organizations from making photocopies of completed voter registration forms for their records; or prevent deputy registrars from mailing completed applications.

One day later, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a motion to stay Judge Costa's order to suspended those provisions, arguing an injunction would lead to confusion and possibly disenfranchise more voters if third party volunteers improperly handled registration. Judge Costa will rule on A.G. Abbott's motion on Wednesday to determine whether to allow those five provisions of Texas law to remain in effect pending a full trial.

KVUE News

KVUE News

There are more than 13 million registered voters in Texas, roughly 71 percent of the voting age population, however, there’s a fight brewing over exactly who can register the rest.

At issue are a five provisions of current Texas law, from a pair of items passed during the last session to legislation dating to the mid-1980s. One provision keeps third-party voter registration groups from working in more than one county.

Another specifies only Texas residents who are themselves registered to vote in a county can can become a deputy registrar to register new voters who reside only in that same county. Other elements include legislation to keep registrars from being paid in relation to the number they sign up, from photocopying registration certificates and from mailing completed forms.

Last week, a federal judge put those laws on hold with an injunction against the State of Texas. In his 94-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa of Galveston called the rules “more burdensome… than the vast majority, if not all, other states.”

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott replied Friday with a motion to stay, arguing an injunction would lead to confusion and possibly disenfranchise more voters if third party volunteers improperly handled registration. ”I just think it’s another straw man,” said Dicky Grigg, an Austin attorney representing Voting for America, an organization that includes non-partisan voter registration organization Project Vote and a plaintiff in the original lawsuit against Texas.

Grigg characterizes the legislation as a whole as “sort of like a thousand small cuts,” designed to disenfranchise minority voters under the guise of preventing statistically rare voter fraud. ”What they’re trying to do is to prevent the registration of minority voters. That’s basically the bottom line of what the legislature has done,” said Grigg. “Talking to the media they talk about voter fraud, but there wasn’t one piece of evidence of voter fraud put on before this judge because it doesn’t exist,” said Grigg. “It’s not a problem.”

Read the full story @ KVUE News.

GOP's Serious Vulnerability To A Democratic Wave Election

Democracy Corps

Less than 100 days until the election, the latest battleground survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Democracy Corps shows Democrats with an advantage in the most vulnerable tier of Republican districts. The first Democracy Corps survey of the reapportioned battleground shows Republican incumbents in serious and worsening trouble. The 2012 campaign has just turned the corner on 100 days and the message of this survey could not be clearer: these 54 battleground Republicans are very vulnerable and many will lose their seats.

These members, on average, are barely ahead of their challengers and are as vulnerable as the incumbents in 2006, 2008 and 2010. Those elections we now know crystallized earlier—in 2010, incumbent vulnerability translated into anti-Democratic voting by March as health care came to a close in 2010. These incumbents are equally vulnerable but have not yet paid the price for the Ryan budget and their priorities, but it is clear that their support is now falling.

These Republican incumbents now hold a marginal edge against their unnamed challengers—47 to 45 percent.

In the most competitive half of the battleground – the 27 most vulnerable Republican-held seats, where Democrats lead the named incumbent by 6 points, 50 to 44 percent—two-thirds could lose their seats.

While Democrats start behind in the vote in the second-tier districts, a balanced battle on the Ryan budget and tax cuts erodes the Republican advantage by two-thirds, getting Democrats to within 3 points in these districts.

A number of things have come together to make these incumbents vulnerable. Obama has made significant gains in these districts—he edges Romney on the ballot by a 2-point margin—just two points short of his margin in these districts in 2008. The Republican brand is also in trouble in these Republican seats, and the party image is growing increasingly negative. Finally, these incumbents themselves are very weak on the traditional measures of incumbency, like fighting for people in their own district.

Read the full story @ Democracy Corps.

Sadler Could Win U.S. Senate In November On Turnout

When it comes to the reality of winning election to the U.S. Senate in the one of the nation's most consistently far right red states, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Paul Sadler argues it isn't impossible. Sadler believes a high turnout of his supporters, Democrats, Independents and old guard Republicans, for the November general election could give him the win over Tea Party nominee Ted Cruz .

Tea party-backed attorney Ted Cruz trounced old guard Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to win the primary runoff Tuesday and seize the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Cruz received support from national Tea Party super PACs such as Club for Growth and FreedomWorks, national conservative radio hosts including Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Tea Party celebrities Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum.

According to a Public Policy Polling (PPP) report,Cruz's victory was driven by 4 things:

The Tea Party, the enthusiasm of his supporters, a generational divide within the Texas Republican ranks, and the lack of regard the party base currently holds for Rick Perry.

Cruz led Dewhurst by a whooping 75-22 margin with Tea Party voters, more than making up for a 56-39 deficit Dewhurst had with voters who don't consider themselves members of that movement. There has been too much of a tendency to ascribe any Republican primary upset over the last few years to Tea Party voters, but this is one case where it's well justified.

Sadler said in a KVUE interview that he doesn't buy is Cruz's claim that his win marked a Tea Party "revolution" in Texas.

KVUE News interview with
Paul Sadler, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate

Pointing to the relatively small group of 1.1 million voters who cast Republican primary runoff ballots, Sadler believes a high turnout general election in November could paint a different picture.

Cruz captured only 631,316 (56.8%) statewide votes in the runoff, out of 13,065,425 registered voters and a total Voting Age Population of 18,279,737 Texans. Only 1.4 million people voted in the May 29 Republican primary where Cruz received only 480,558 votes.

(2012 Primary Turnout by VAP)

Sadler told KVUE News that he believes Cruz's Tea Party insurgency is already causing some more moderate Republicans to consider crossing over in the general election.

"We're raising money. Our money has started coming in very rapidly," Sadler said. "In fact, I started getting calls Tuesday afternoon -- a lot from Republicans wanting to donate to the campaign, get involved in the campaign."

When it comes to the reality of pulling off an upset in the one of the nation's most consistently red states, Sadler argues it isn't impossible. The East Texas native believes the numbers to pull off a Democratic win are achievable.

"I'm going to win the Hispanic vote because my policies are right. I'm going to win the African-American vote because my policies are right, and they've always supported me," said Sadler. "I won 14 out of 16 counties in East Texas, which is where I need to win. Even if I just do 45 percent, I win the United States Senate seat."

Sadler points to several issues when it comes to his opponent, including the fact the Ted Cruz was born in Canada and not a "native son" of Texas. He also takes issue with the amount of support Cruz received from out of state super PACs such as Club for Growth, national conservative radio hosts including Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Tea Party celebrities Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum.

"I don't want to owe anybody outside the State of Texas our Senate seat. I don't want to owe some group outside the State of Texas our Senate seat," said Sadler. "We'll all own this seat, and we won't owe it to Club for Growth or some other big super PAC; we'll answer to each other for it."

"I'm from here. I've seen the hurricanes on the coast. I've seen the wind storms and the dust storms in West Texas; I've lived through them. I've lived through the drought in Central Texas. I've seen the hot, humid days in the summer in East Texas," said Sadler. "I know this state, and that's what we need in the United States Senate. We don't need some Washington hand-picked lobbyist."

Read the full story @ KVUE News.

Paul Sadler for U.S. Senate campaign video

Pew: Obama Leads Romney By 10 Points Nationally

A new poll from the Pew Research Center finds more voters say they have an unfavorable than favorable view of Mitt Romney by a 52% to 37% margin.

A review of final pre-election surveys of voters since 1988 finds that all candidates enjoyed considerably higher personal ratings going into the final days of their campaigns than does Mitt Romney currently. Only three, Michael Dukakis in 1988, George H.W. Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996, were not rated favorably by a majority of voters.

Obama continues to hold a sizable lead over Romney in the election contest. Currently, 51% say they support Obama or lean toward him, while 41% support or lean toward Romney.

This is largely unchanged from earlier in July and consistent with polling over the course of this year. But Obama holds only a four-point edge (48% to 44%) across 12 of this year’s key battleground states.

Read the full report @ Pew Research Center.

U.S. District Court Suspends Five Texas Restrictions On Deputy Voter Registrars

In 2011, the 82nd Texas Legislature enacted and the Governor signed three bills that substantially affected the qualifications to become a volunteer deputy registrar in Texas. Today, U.S. Southern District Court Judge Gregg Costa suspended five provisions of Texas law that place restrictions on groups and individuals who work to register new voters. Judge Costa issued his 94-page order (3:12-cv-00044 Document 65) in the Voting for America v. Hope Andrade case.

The suit was filed in February against Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade’s office by Voting for America Inc., the voter registration affiliate of Project Vote, a national nonprofit voter education and advocacy organization. The deputy registrar provisions Judge Costa suspended with a temporary injunction are:

1. No one can work in voter registration drives who doesn’t live in Texas;
   
2. No one can work outside any one particular county;
   
3. Payment to registration drive workers must be an hourly wage and compensation cannot be based on the worker’s productivity;
   
4. No completed voter registration forms can be photocopied by the registration drive workers or the registration drive organization; and
   
5. All completed voter registrations must be delivered to county elections officials in person by the deputy registrar.
   

It may take a while for the Office of the Secretary of State to update the Texas Volunteer Deputy Registrar Guide on it's website.

Democrats - Wake Up And Learn To Use The Internet!

by Michael Handley, DBN Managing Editor

In toppling Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst for the state’s Republican nomination for U.S. Senate Tuesday, Mr. Cruz certainly had the full force of the Tea Party movement supporting him with cash, social media, and people power.

Dewhurst, owner of an energy company, dominated Cruz 3-1 in campaign donations, raising more than $33 million. But super PAC and other outside spending on "soft" media buys increases the total money spent by or for Dewhurst to $39.5 million. Cruz's campaign raised just $10.2 million with pro-Cruz groups adding an estimated $8 million more in soft spending.

Dewhurst had more than a 2-1 advantage in campaign spending, used largely for old media advertising buys. And still, Tea Party favorite and former Texas solicitor general Cruz shellacked Dewhurst 55 percent to 45 percent.

What happened to the old math of campaign spending in the 2012 Texas GOP primary? As they proved with big 2010 mid-term election Tea Party candidate wins, Tea Party groups have learned how to use the Internet's free communication channels to motivate voters and get out the vote.

The Tea Party may be an Astroturf movement funded by billionaire conservatives like Charles and David Koch, but it has proven very effective in using the Internet to motivate grassroots conservatives to get out and vote.

President Obama got elected in 2008, in part, by harnessing the Web and mobile phones, drawing in a new generation of young people. Now the Tea Party is using the Internet and mobile devices as effectively as the Obama campaign and much more effectively than Democrats in general, or even old guard conservatives like David Dewhurst, in drawing in both young and older voters.

Grassroots Democrats - wake up and learn how to effectively use the Internet to drive and support your "base building" community organizing and Get Out The Vote ground games!

How the Tea Party Used Obama's Digital Playbook To Gain Power

Obamacare Gives Women Health Security

Forty-seven million women are getting greater control over their health care and access to eight new prevention-related health care services without paying more out of their own pocket beginning Aug. 1, 2012, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today.

On July 31 Republicans in the House of Representatives for the thirty-four time since they took control of the House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, to emphasis their not only their opposition to the Obamacare, but their war on women.

Specifically, the eight preventive-care provisions that, as of today, will no longer entail any out-of-pocket costs for 47 million American women are:

1. Well-woman visits.
2. Gestational diabetes screening that helps protect pregnant women from one of the most serious pregnancy-related diseases.
3. Domestic and interpersonal violence screening and counseling.
4. FDA-approved contraceptive methods, and contraceptive education and counseling - Birth control covered by insurance companies, free of co-pays.
5. Breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling.
6. HPV DNA testing, for women 30 or older.
7. Sexually transmitted infections counseling for sexually-active women.
8. HIV screening and counseling for sexually-active women.
   

• To learn more about the health care services available for at no extra charge under the Affordable Care Act, go to http://www.healthcare.gov/prevention.

The Rachel Maddow Show," July 31, 2012

Previously some insurance companies did not cover these preventive services for women at all under their health plans, while some women had to pay deductibles or copays for the care they needed to stay healthy. The new rules in the health care law requiring coverage of these services take effect at the next renewal date – on or after Aug. 1, 2012—for most health insurance plans. For the first time ever, women will have access to even more life-saving preventive care free of charge.

According to a new HHS report also released today, approximately 47 million women are in health plans that must cover these new preventive services at no charge. Women, not insurance companies, can now make health decisions that will keep them healthy, catch potentially serious conditions at an earlier state, and protect them and their families from crushing medical bills.

The Affordable Care Act requires many insurance plans to provide coverage for and eliminate cost-sharing on certain recommended preventive health services.

In addition, pursuant to the Affordable Care Act, in August 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Health Resources and Services Administration published guidelines on women’s preventive services that require health insurance plans to cover certain recommended preventive services specifically for women, without charging a co-pay, co-insurance or a deductible beginning in plan years starting on or after August 1, 2012.

The Guidelines are based on recommendations to the Department from the Institute of Medicine (IOM). The Department provided for an exemption for certain religious employers, and a transition is provided for certain additional non-profit organizations with religious objections to contraception coverage.

“President Obama is moving our country forward by giving women control over their health care,” Secretary Sebelius said. “This law puts women and their doctors, not insurance companies or the government, in charge of health care decisions.”

Democratic Blog News Endorses Paul Sadler For U.S. Senate

Primary run-off Election Day is 7:00am-7:00pm, Tuesday, July 31. We encourage all Democratic voters to cast their ballot for Paul Sadler.

Collin Co. Election Day Polling Locations & Sample Ballots

The Democratic Party's runoff ballot is short. It has just one statewide ballot position for U.S. Senate. Democratic Blog News endorses Paul Sadler in the Democratic runoff for U.S. Senate and encourages all Democratic voters to cast their ballots for this well qualified candidate.

Sadler's extensive Texas legislative experience in public education and professional work on renewable energy give him a solid grounding on issues that are critical to Texas and the nation. He is the obvious choice in the runoff to be our Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, and will best represent Texas, if elected.

Many Democrats voted for Grady Yarbrough in the May 29 primary because they recognize the name Yarbrough on the ballot. Grady Yarbrough seemingly snuck onto the runoff ballot because too many Democrats confused him with the former Democratic statesman, Ralph Yarborough. Grady Yarbrough ran twice as a Republican for statewide office -- he is definitely no Ralph Yarborough. As reported by the Dallas Morning News, Yarbrough “hasn’t kept up with Federal Elections Commission campaign finance filings […] There is no documented proof about how his campaign is funded.” When asked about his position on immigration, Yarbrough said that the Berlin Wall was “pretty effective.”

If you love outside of Collin Co. you can find your polling place here.

Candidate backgrounder after the more jump.

TDP Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa Coming To Dallas August 27

Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa will be at Fairview Farms Corral Barn on Monday, August 27 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm to support the Democratic candidates for the Fifth District Court of Appeals. (Fairview Farms Corral Barn, 3314 North Central Expressway, Plano 75074 - map)

The Texas District Courts of Appeals are distributed in fourteen districts around the state of Texas. The Courts of Appeal have intermediate appellate jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases appealed from district or county courts. Like the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals, Justices of the Texas Courts of Appeals are elected to six-year terms by general election.

Appeals from Collin, Dallas, Kaufman, Rockwall and Grayson counties (map) are all heard by the 5th District Court of Appeals, which includes one Chief Justice and twelve other Justices.

In the 2012 General Election five Democratic Candidates are running for the 5th Court of Appeals.

• Tonya Holt for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 11
  
• Penny Phillips for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 5
  
• Larry Praeger for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 12
  
• David Hanshen for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 9
• Dan Wood for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 2
  

Both civil and criminal appeals are typically heard by a panel of three justices, unless in a particular case "en banc" hearing is ordered, in which instance all the justices of that Court hear and consider the case. (Graphical Guide to the Court System of Texas)