The current mandamus proceeding is the second of two recent requests for mandamus which have been brought by the State Democratic Executive Committee. In both instances, a majority of the court has granted the Democratic Party’s request.
How later courts described this case
- The current mandamus proceeding is the second of two recent requests for mandamus which have been brought by the State Democratic Executive Committee. In both instances, a majority of the court has granted the Democratic Party’s request.
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
MAUZY, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the court’s opinion, but write to point out the strained emptiness of the dissent’s reasoning. One of the foremost principles of judicial decision-making is that courts will avoid rendering advisory opinions. Firemen’s Insurance Company of Newark, New Jersey v. Burch, 442 S.W.2d 331 (Tex.1968). Yet, that is exactly what the dissent would have this court do. By raising the spectre of two competing claims to an office, the dissent poses a hypothetical problem that does not in fact present itself to the court and then proceeds to reason around its own “what if” style of speculation. This type of reasoning may be suitable for editorial hyperbole of an idealogue, but judges are to decide *308 real disputes, not imaginary ones. Not only does the dissent focus on a purely theoretical problem, but it also relies for authority on a case that did not even involve an elected official. Sawyer v. City of San Antonio, 149 Tex. 408 , 234 S.W.2d 398 (1950), involved the resignation of a police officer and had absolutely nothing to do with election law. As such, Sawyer is simply not apposite to the case at hand.
This should have been a unanimous decision. The law is straightforward. By applying the Election Code as written, the court has merely assured that the electoral process is allowed to function in accordance with the law as passed by the people’s elected representatives.
Our job as judges is to apply the statutory law as written, not to fashion new law based on hypothetical “what if” scenarios. The people of Texas have repeatedly asserted their choice to retain their constitutional right to elect those persons who adjudicate their disputes. This right is too important and too precious to toy with through political posturing and judicial gamesmanship.