Texas Supreme Court Justice Bob Gammage

John Domino examines Texas Supreme Court Justice Bob Gammage’s progressive jurisprudence during the most tumultuous period in Texas judicial history which witnessed numerous seismic shifts, including the manner in which judicial campaign were conducted, a dramatic change in the partisan and ideological composition of the Texas Supreme Court as well as Court of Criminal Appeals and most of the fourteen intermediate appellate courts, and the birth of the judicial reform movement in Texas. In his decisions, most of which were heavily influenced by Arthur R. Hogue’s Origins of the Common Law and Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Common Law, Gammage forged a solid liberal record arguing for robust individual rights, whether those rights were implied in the Texas constitution, protecting the right to privacy, freedom of expression, due process, and equal protection.

This is a well-written and thoroughly researched book on a significant Texas justice, the issues he faced, and the problems of the partisan judicial election system in which he worked.

John C. Domino is professor of political science at Sam Houston State University.