Embattled family court judge Denise Pratt is back in the news. No, she hasn’t been indicted yet, but she is still dragging the Harris County Republican Party down. From Kiah Collier in the Houston Chronicle:

The political situation would appear to put local Republican Party leaders, including Woodfill, in an awkward position.

Since last year, Pratt has appointed Woodfill to cases for which he has made nearly $10,000. He is not the only lawyer and Republican Party leader Pratt has appointed to cases in her court since taking the bench in 2011.

According to information obtained under the Texas Public Information Act, former party chairman Gary Polland, whose endorsements are considered key to judicial GOP primary wins, has made more than $79,000 in legal fees from appointments by Pratt. Lawyer George Clevenger, chairman of the party’s finance committee, has made more than $114,000.

Hey, don’t blame Collier, she’s just doing her job. The plain truth is that Denise Pratt should never have been on the bench in the first place. She is the poster child for everything that is wrong with the “pay to play” slate system in Harris County Republican Party politics. She is on the bench solely because she bought it.

The 2010 primary was a lot of fun for me. It was two years before cancer slowed me down and I went to, literally, hundreds of small campaign events that year, from tea party gatherings, to Republican Women club meetings, to establishment club meetings, to HCRP sponsored meetings, etc. I got to know every single candidate that campaigned and there were dozens and dozens of them. Here is what I wrote about Denise Pratt in February of 2010:

District Judge, 311th Family Court

Very weird things going on here. Denise Pratt gives Lowry 10 grand, pays her sister to show up and campaign, and basically is a shadow candidate. Lots of good alternatives here, all four of the others are very well qualified.

Lowry would be Terry Lowry, proprietor of the slate named the Link Letter. The Link Letter was statistically the most influential slate that year, as I demonstrated in this post. Pratt did not campaign – her sister campaigned for her. Pratt also paid Gary Polland, proprietor of the Texas Conservative Review, the third most influential slate that year. Here are screenshots of her payments to the two men:

In total, she paid the two slates $19,500. Her total expenditures for the campaign were $31,383.99. The slates were 62{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of her spending. And she won without a runoff in a five person field that included some very qualified candidates.

So, Harris County Republicans, don’t blame Denise Pratt for the problems she is causing the party right now. Blame yourself for allowing this system to take hold and put wholly unqualified candidates on judicial benches. Trust me when I say this: Denise Pratt isn’t the only Republican judge sitting behind a bench that is wholly unqualified to be there.

I hope that Denise reconsiders and withdraws her name from the 2014 primary. She is a fine person and has many admirable qualities. Being a judge simply isn’t one of them.

What can Harris County Republicans do to fix this? Stop relying on the pay to play slate mailers for your information. Go to meetings and meet the candidates. Look them up on the internet and find out for yourself who they are.

One group in Harris County that puts out a slate of endorsements that is not paid for is the United Republicans of Harris County. My friend and fellow blogger Karen Townsend (Pondering Penguin) is on the board of that group and has a blog post up today about their process of endorsing candidates. You should click over and read it if you haven’t heard of this group. Fellow BJP blogger Ed Hubbard is also on that board.

You can also demand more from the chair of the party, Jared Woodfill. Jared is well aware of this system and has enabled it during the twelve years he has been chair. Tell him that before he gets your vote again, he must publicly denounce the pay to play slate system. If he refuses to, find another candidate to lead the party. The chair by himself can’t fix the problem but a public denunciation of the pay to play slate system will go a long way towards fixing it.

And you can also do something yourself. Promise a candidate that if they pay one of these slates, you will not vote for them. Don’t worry, you won’t have to look it up, I’ll be here to let you know who is paying them. Because it is one thing I can do.