Thomas R. Phillips

Chief Justice

Phillips took office less than a month after CBS' 60 Minutes ran a highly publicized story, entitled "Justice for Sale?", which won widespread attention for its blistering critique of Texas's choice to elect judges by political party without campaign contribution limits. The broadcast alleged improperly close ties between several of the justices and their largest donors, who were among the state's most successful personal injury trial lawyers. In campaigns that received national attention in 1988, Phillips and two other candidates running as Republicans won election by imposing voluntary limits on the size of campaign contributions. By winning, they joined Railroad Commissioner Kent Hance as the first Republican elected to statewide office since Reconstruction. Phillips, after serving the two years remaining on the term of his predecessor, Chief Justice John L. Hill, was elected to a full term in 1990. In each race he defeated one of his Democratic colleagues on the Court, Ted Z. Robertson in 1988 and Oscar H. Mauzy in 1990, who defended Texas's partisan judicial election system and declined to impose campaign contribution caps. Throughout his tenure, Phillips advocated for a non-partisan appointment-retention election method of choosing Texas judges. He was ultimately unsuccessful, like other Texas chief justices before and since. Both the Legislature and the Supreme Court imposed restrictions on the amount, timing and source of campaign contributions to judges during his tenure.

Phillips served as President of the Conference of Chief Justices in 1997-1998, an Adviser of the Federal Judicial Code Project of the American Law Institute, and a member of the Federal-State Relations Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference, the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, the Texas Historical Commission, and the NCAA Committee on Infractions.