2025 bills / H.B. 512
H.B. 512 Judicial Retention Changes (2025)
- Introduced
- House committee
- House vote (stopped here)
- Senate committee
- Senate vote
- Signed into law
What this bill does
AI summary from the official description
The bill creates a Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance that can evaluate judges up for retention and recommend whether voters should keep them. Evaluations and recommendations are due to the lieutenant governor by August 15 of election years, and the recommendation goes to county clerks for the ballot and voter pamphlet.
About this summary
Quotes come from the official recordings' automatic captions, and plain-English summaries are written by AI from the official record. A person reviews them, but always check the recording before quoting anyone; every quote links to its moment in the video.
Check the official text below.
Official description
- modifies the ballot requirements for judicial retention elections
- modifies the information contained in the voter information pamphlet for judicial retention elections
- requires the lieutenant governor to transmit a retention recommendation from the Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance to a county clerk
- amends the ballot language for a judicial retention election to address a retention recommendation from the Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance
- provides that certain records for the Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance are private
- requires the Judicial Conduct Committee to provide records to the Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance under certain conditions
- defines terms related to judicial performance evaluations
- requires the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission to provide the Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance with a list of judges who are subject to a retention election in the next scheduled regular general election
- creates the Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance
- addresses the membership, length of appointment, selection of the chairs, quorum requirements, and compensation for the Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance
- allows the Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance to evaluate a judge and provide a recommendation to the public as to whether the judge should be retained for another term
- provides the evaluation and recommendation process for the Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance, including requiring the Joint Legislative Committee on Judicial Performance to:
- hold any committee meeting to evaluate a judge before August 15 of the year in which the judge is subject to a retention election in a regular general election
- provide a retention recommendation for a judge to the lieutenant governor on or before August 15 of the year in which the judge is subject to a retention election in a regular general election
- makes technical and conforming changes
Your legislators on this bill
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Take action
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What members get
- An alert the day H.B. 512 is put on a committee agenda, with time and room, so you can be there to speak
- When H.B. 512 is rewritten, exactly which words changed
- Its hearings in your own calendar
- Your own scorecard: pick the side you favor and see how every legislator voted
Every vote
- 7 yes, 2 no, 2 absentHouse Judiciary Committee: vote to approve it · Feb 24, 2025Who voted how