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Kind of funny, I guess.
But he actually came up with the idea and campaigned for months to have that resolution created and passed.
I'll give the guy credit. Judges are elected in Texas and since the Texas Supreme Court will always be a statewide race, even the slightest name recognition for an incumbent is a rubber stamp for re-election. His tweets are silly, full of dad jokes, and never controversial.
See what I mean?
But he knows how to get his name out there. (Hey, I got sucked into writing about him, the legislature got sucked in, and now the main stream media just copies and pastes the AP story.) He is modern day political genius. What's the phrase? "Crazy as a fox"? Karl Rove could learn from him.*
Incidentally, based upon my Westlaw search, over the last 12 months Justice Willett has authored six opinions for the Texas Supreme Court. I'm guessing that the job of writing the opinion is "assigned" by the Chief Justice to a judge in the majority which means "Hey, you and your clerk write it." During that time period, he never wrote an opinion concurring or dissenting. Those opinions, which take time and effort and passion, are written voluntarily. The absence of those voluntarily opinions may mean something. Maybe not. In those 12 months he hasn't evened "joined" a dissenting opinion. Heck, he may be content with everything the court decides.
You pay him $168,000 a year plus a pension.
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*I couldn't help but think about Austin political consultant Dave Carney who was behind the failed Rick Perry presidential run and the disastrous David Dewhurst campaign for Lieutenant Governor ("Ted Cruz represented the Chinese!") I don't know what he was paid for his advice, but Willett's free Twitter account should make guys like him obsolete.
