Dear Ms. Riddle, Recently New York’s top court officials decided to bar the state’s hundreds of elected judges from hearing cases involving lawyers and others who make significant contributions to their campaigns, a move that will change the political culture of courts and transform judicial elections by removing an important incentive lawyers have for contributing. This move bluntly tackles an important issue in our state — money in judicial politics — that deserves more legislative attention. Similar measures have been adopted recently in Washington, Oklahoma, Michigan and other states, and would take the question of disqualification entirely out of judges’ hands. Texas, too, should flatly state that “no case shall be assigned” by court administrators to a judge when the lawyers or any of the participants involved donated money in the preceding two years. The reasons should be obvious. Daniel Schuman has written about the growing problem of money in judicial elections across...