State Bar President Tom Vick
Editor’s note: State Bar of Texas President Tom Vick sent the following message to members Wednesday.
Dear Members,
I’m writing to let you know that the Nominations and Elections Subcommittee of the State Bar Board of Directors voted today to nominate Lisa Blue of Dallas and Randy Sorrels of Houston to be candidates for 2018-2019 State Bar president-elect. The Board of Directors will vote on the nominations at its next meeting, on January 26 in San Antonio.
The election will take place April 2 to May 1. The winner will serve as State Bar president-elect in 2018-2019 and as president in 2019-2020.
You may have heard that Ms. Blue and Mr. Sorrels have been gathering petition signatures to become candidates for president-elect. Under the State Bar Act, Texas lawyers can run for president-elect either through our board’s nomination process or by collecting petition signatures.
This year, the subcommittee decided to nominate the petition candidates for board consideration. This is unusual, but I believe it is prudent under the circumstances.
Here’s why: Our board’s Nominations and Elections Subcommittee met in September and identified 31 potential president-elect nominees. With the exception of Ms. Blue and Mr. Sorrels, none of them desire to be candidates. When contacted, many expressed interest in running for president-elect someday, but they did not want to run this year because in their view the petition candidates, who started gathering signatures months ago, had a significant head start on campaigning and thus a potential advantage.
As I reported in September, the Nominations and Elections Subcommittee is working to ensure that all candidates—whether they are selected by the board or certified through petition—have the same opportunities to campaign under our election guidelines. The subcommittee and the full board will continue to work to improve our processes.
In the meantime, anyone seeking election as a petition candidate in 2018 has until March 1 to be certified for a place on the ballot.
I will keep you updated on the nomination process. If you have questions or comments, please let me know.
Sincerely,
Tom Vick
President, State Bar of Texas