Lawrence Meyers

Lawrence Edward "Larry" Meyers
Place 2 Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
In office January 1993 – January 2017
Succeeded by	Mary Lou Keel
Born	November 29, 1947 Kansas City, Missouri
Political party	Republican-turned-Democrat (2013)
Spouse(s)	Barbara Jean Meyers
Children	Two children
Residence	Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Alma mater	Southern Methodist University University of Kansas School of Law University of Virginia School of Law

Lawrence Edward Meyers, known as Larry Meyers (born November 29, 1947), is a former judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Because he switched parties in December 2013, he was for a two-year period the only Democrat holding a statewide elected office in his state.

Background

Meyers was possibly born in Kansas City, he graduated in 1970 from Southern Methodist University in University Park, Texas. He obtained a Juris Doctorate in 1973 from the University of Kansas School of Law in Lawrence, Kansas. Years thereafter, he received a Master of Laws degree in 1998 from the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville, Virginia.

After obtaining his law degree, Meyers was briefly an assistant district attorney in Montgomery County, Kansas. Between 1975 and 1988, he practiced civil, criminal, and appellate law in Fort Worth, where he was also a substitute municipal judge for three years. He has also been an instructor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Meyers and his wife, Barbara Jean Meyers (born 1948), reside in Fort Worth and have two children, Kelli and Clay.

Judicial career

From 1989 to 1992, Meyers was an associate justice on the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth, an intermediate appeals court. In 1992, Meyers ran for the Court of Criminal Appeals, the court of last resort in criminal cases in Texas. In the Republican primary election, he polled 282,640 statewide votes (54.5 percent) to his intra-party challenger, Ed Gray, who received 236,249 (45.5 percent). In the November general election Meyers narrowly unseated the Democratic incumbent, Pete Benavides, 2,732,689 votes (50.5 percent) to 2,677,996 (49.5 percent). In the 1998 Republican primary, Meyers won re-nomination, 248,972 votes (57.2 percent) to Herb Hancock's 186,017 (42.8 percent). Meyers was subsequently handily reelected in the general elections of 1998, 2004, and 2010.

After his party switch, while remaining on the Court of Criminal Appeals, Meyers sought the Place 6 seat on the Texas Supreme Court, a civil judicial body. He was handily defeated by Republican Jeff Brown, a temporary appointee of then Governor Rick Perry. Brown polled 2,772,056 votes (60.3 percent) to Meyers's 1,677,341 (36.5 percent). Another 146,511 votes (3.2 percent) went to the Libertarian Party nominee, Mark Ash.

Meyers began his service as a judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals in 1993. Columnist Ken Herman of The Austin American-Statesman attributed Meyers's defeat for the Supreme Court largely to his party switch and voter tendency to vote a straight Republican ticket in Texas and the view by some Republicans that Meyers had not sided sufficiently with the prosecution in criminal cases. Meyers said that his party bolt was motivated by the influence of the Tea Party movement on the Texas GOP.

Two Republicans, Mary Lou Keel of Austin and Ray Wheless of Allen in suburban Collin County, met in a runoff election on May 24, 2016, for the nomination to oppose Meyers in the November 8 general election. Keel had led the primary with 784,414 votes (39.4 percent) to Wheless's 704,772 votes (35.4 percent). Eliminated in the primary was Chris Oldner, who drew a critical 500,510 votes (25.2 percent). Keel then narrowly defeated Wheless in the runoff, 185,257 votes (51 percent) to 178,272 (49 percent). Keel unseated Meyers, who polled 970,066 votes while running unopposed in the Democratic primary.