OPINION: Meyer thanks JP3 voters, congratulates Gable-Hale, vows to continue lawsuit

Thank you

To the 29,583 voters who chose an Independent for Justice of the Peace: thank you. You made up nearly 35 percent of the vote in a race in which I did not have a party label, in one of the most Republican counties in Texas. Some of you are lifelong Republicans, some Democrats, and many of you belong to neither party. Each of you looked past the label, and I am grateful.

Thank you to the 520 neighbors who signed my petition last spring and put me on the ballot. Thank you to the friends and volunteers who knocked on doors, made calls, kept signs in their yards and stood in the rain at polling places. And thank you to my wife, Monika, who planned routes, held signs and kept me going from the first signature to the last sign pulled up on Election Night.

Congratulations to Judge-elect Gable-Hale

The voters of Justice of the Peace Precinct 3 have spoken, and I congratulate Brittany Gable-Hale on her election. Running for any office takes time, energy and a willingness to be judged in public, and she earned her win. I wish her well on the bench, and I hope every person who walks into her courtroom leaves feeling they were heard and treated fairly.

What the numbers say

The results tell a story bigger than one race. Look at the judicial contests on the Montgomery County ballot this year. The 9 Democratic candidates who ran for the Texas Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the new 15th Court of Appeals, had widely different backgrounds and qualifications. Yet every one of them received between 32.9 and 35.2 percent of the vote in Montgomery County.

I ran as an Independent and landed at 34.8 percent, squarely in that band. Texas abolished straight-ticket voting in 2020, yet in judicial races the label still decides nearly everything. Voters reaching the bottom of a long ballot do what is sensible with little information: they use the party label as a shortcut.

That shortcut works poorly for judges. A party label tells you how a legislator is likely to vote. It tells you almost nothing about whether a judge knows the law, listens to both sides or, in JP Court, treats a self-represented tenant the same as a landlord's lawyer. No umpire walks onto the field in a team jersey, and no judge should have to either.

A similar pattern showed up across Texas, and it isn't just a Republican-versus-Independent issue. Only 17 Independents anywhere in Texas made it through the arduous petition process onto the November ballot, and just three ran for judicial office, all for Justice of the Peace. Of the 15 Independents who filed petitions with the Secretary of State for state and district offices, only three made the ballot, and none as a judicial candidate. Of all 17 Independent candidates in Texas, I drew the second-highest vote total, and of the three Independent Justice of the Peace candidates, I drew the highest share of the vote. In races like mine, with one party nominee and one Independent, most Independents landed near a third of the vote, close to where the missing party's candidate would have finished. In Hays County, for example, Kirsta Melton, an Independent running against a Democrat for district attorney, drew 36 percent; running against a Republican in Montgomery County, I drew nearly as much.

Why I went to court

Independents face an uphill battle at every step, from getting on the ballot to where their name appears on it. A party nominee wins a primary; an Independent must gather hundreds of signatures from voters who did not vote in any party primary with a candidate for that office, under strict rules and a short deadline. The Independent must also sit out any party primary or runoff with a candidate for that office, giving up his own vote, to stay eligible. Then, on the ballot itself, the law lists every party nominee first and the Independent last.

That is why I filed Meyer v. Howden in the 284th District Court. While courts have held there is no constitutional right to be a candidate, a candidate who qualifies deserves to be treated the same as everyone else on the ballot. Parties should not hold a superior position to citizens who want to serve, least of all in races for judge. The case does not challenge this year's result; it seeks fairer rules for whoever runs next.

What comes next

I am not going anywhere. I have made my home with my family in The Woodlands since 1995, and I will keep serving this community through Rotary and the Library Advisory Board, as a volunteer mediator with the Dispute Resolution Center of Montgomery County, and as a substitute teacher in Conroe ISD classrooms. I will continue practicing law, advising AI companies and arbitrating disputes. I will carry my case forward in court on behalf of future Independent candidates, and I will keep pressing for nonpartisan courts. And I will keep listening to the many voters who told me this year that they want judges chosen for their competence, not their party.

Nearly 30,000 of my neighbors voted for an Independent. That is a beginning, not an end. Currently, I expect to be on the ballot again in 2030, and I hope you will be with me then.

Charles B. "Chuck" Meyer, BCL (Oxon), Fellow, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators
Small business lawyer, patent attorney, arbitrator, mediator and AI advisor
The Woodlands

Questions? Contact me on LinkedIn or Facebook.