Don Willett

Don R. Willett
Texas Supreme Court Justice Don R. Willett
Texas Supreme Court Justice
Incumbent
Assumed office August 24, 2005
Preceded by	Priscilla Owen
Personal details
Born	July 16, 1966 (1966-07-16) (age 45) Talty, Kaufman County, Texas, USA
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Tiffany Willett
Children	Jacob, Shane-David, and Genevieve Willett
Residence	Austin, Travis County, Texas
Alma mater	Forney High School Baylor University Duke University
Occupation	Attorney; Judge

Don R. Willett (born July 16, 1966) is a Justice on the Supreme Court of Texas. He was appointed by Governor Rick Perry on August 24, 2005 to fill the vacancy created when former Justice Priscilla Owen joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Willett was elected on November 7, 2006 to a full, six-year term that ends December 31, 2012.

Background and personal life

Willett, a native Texan, was raised in Talty, Texas. His father died at the age of forty, when Willett was six, and he and his older sister (Donny and Donna) were reared by their mother, Doris, who waited tables to support the family. Neither of Willett’s parents finished high school. Willett attended public schools in Forney, having graduated in 1984, and then was his family’s first college graduate.

Willett received a triple-major BBA (economics, finance, public administration) from Baylor University in 1988. He received his J.D. with honors, along with an A.M. in political science, from Duke University in 1992.

After law school, Willett clerked for Judge Jerre Stockton Williams at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Willett then practiced employment and labor law in the Austin office of Haynes and Boone, LLP from 1993-1996. During that time, he also served as senior fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Justice Willett has also served as a non-resident fellow with the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS) at the University of Pennsylvania.

In April 1996, he joined then-Governor George W. Bush's administration as Director of Research and Special Projects, advising on various legal and policy issues. In 2000-2001, Willett worked on the Bush-Cheney Presidential Campaign and Transition Team. In the White House, Willett was Special Assistant to the President and Director of Law and Policy for the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (WHOFBCI). He drafted the first two executive orders of the Bush presidency, one creating the WHOFBCI and the other creating related offices in five cabinet agencies. In early 2002, Willett was appointed Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he helped coordinate the selection and confirmation of federal judges. He also supervised policy initiatives such as the PROTECT Act of 2003 to combat child abduction and exploitation. Willett also led development of an executive order to expedite U.S. citizenship for immigrant service members fighting the War on Terror.

Willett returned to Texas in early 2003 to become Deputy Texas Attorney General for Legal Counsel in the office of newly elected Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. As the AG’s chief legal counsel, Willett led the agency’s core legal divisions (opinion committee, open records, general counsel, public finance, intergovernmental relations, and litigation technical support). Besides giving the AG legal advice on various issues, Willett also helped with select litigation, including efforts to protect the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas Capitol grounds and also the Pledge of Allegiance when it was challenged for including the words “under God.” Willett was serving in this Deputy Attorney General position when he was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court in August 2005.^[1]

All Court justices have liaison assignments to help improve different aspects of the civil justice system, and Willett is liaison to the Texas Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism, the Task Force to Ensure Judicial Readiness in Times of Emergency, and the Court Reporters Certification Board.

Willett sits on the advisory board for the Honors College at his alma mater, Baylor University, which named Willett a Distinguished Young Alumnus in 2005. He also served on the national steering committee for Baylor’s proposal to secure the Bush Presidential Library. Willett is on the national advisory board for ConSource (The Constitutional Sources Project), a free, online library of Founding-era source material. For Constitution Day 2008, Willett authored a commentary in the Austin American-Statesman highlighting ConSource and its nonprofit educational mission to make these historical documents accessible to teachers, students, academics, lawyers and judges. Justice Willett is a Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, the Austin Bar Foundation, and is a member of the American Law Institute.

Willett is mentioned and quoted in a March 2008 Washington Post column by conservative commentator George F. Will,^[2] who favorably discusses a book review Willett wrote in the Fall 2007 issue of the Texas Review of Law and Politics, on whose advisory board Willett sits. Willett is also mentioned favorably in David Kuo's book, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction ISBN 0-7432-8712-6 (2006), which criticizes the Bush administration’s pursuit of the president’s faith-based agenda.

Willett and his wife, Tiffany, married in 2000. She served as Litigation Director for a member of the Texas Senate, and in D.C. as Education Director for the White House Fellows. When they left the Bush administration in 2003 to return home to Texas, she worked for Texas CASA, which advocates for abused and neglected children in the court system. The Willetts have three children: Jacob, Shane-David (named after his uncle, Shane Mahaffee, who was killed in Iraq in 2006), and Genevieve. As a youth, Willett rode in rodeos (bulls and bareback horses) and was also a professional drummer.

2006 election

Willett was one of five incumbent justices on the 2006 ballot, but he was the only who faced opposition; his four colleagues were unopposed in both the March 7 primary and the November 7 general election. In the March primary, Willett narrowly defeated former Justice Steven Wayne Smith, who sought to regain a seat on the Court that he had lost in the 2004 Republican primary to Justice Paul Green. In the November general election, Willett defeated Democratic Party nominee Bill Moody by a 51-45 percent (2.12 million votes to Moody’s 1.87 million). Moody garnered considerable media attention during his campaign by walking across Texas, from El Paso to the Louisiana border.

Court decisions

Willett has authored several notable decisions since joining the Court in 2005. All justices’ opinions can found on the Court’s official website,^[3] and some private websites also gather the justices’ individual writings, provide brief summaries of them, and include links.

Awards

Justice Willett was named Outstanding Young Alumnus of Baylor University in 2005 and inducted into the Forney High School Hall of Honor in 2007. He has received the Faith and Integrity in Legal Services Award and the Austin Under 40 Award for Government and Public Affairs.

References

1. ^ Reprint from Austin American-Statesman Aug. 25, 2005.
2. ^ Reprint from the Washington Post, George F. Will column of Mar. 27, 2008, p. A17
3. ^ Official website for the Supreme Court of Texas

External links

• Remarks of Governor Perry on the appointment of Justice Willett
• Statement of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on the appointment of Justice Willett
• Administration of the Oath of Office at Justice Willett’s Formal Investiture (November 21, 2005)
• Texas Bar Journal Article on Justice Willett’s Investiture
• Reprint from Texas Politics blog, Oct. 24, 2006
• Text of Executive Order 13199 (Jan. 29, 2001) Regarding the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
• Text of Executive Order 13198 (Jan. 29, 2001) Regarding “Agency Responsibilities With Respect to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
• Text of Executive Order 13269 (July 3, 2002) Regarding “Expedited Naturalization of Aliens and Noncitizen Nationals Serving in an Active-Duty Status During the War on Terrorism”
• Justice Willett's profile at the Texas Supreme Court
• Justice Willett's Official Campaign Website
• Justice Willett’s op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman on Constitution Day 2008
• Website for Texas Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism
• Website for ConSource (The Constitutional Sources Project)
• Website for Texas Review of Law & Politics
• Justice Willett’s book review in the Texas Review of Law & Politics
• Website for Baylor Alumni Association article listing Outstanding Young Alumni for 2005
• Website for Texas CASA
• Website with links to some of Justice Willett’s opinions

Preceded by Priscilla Owen

Texas Supreme Court Justice, Place 2 2005–present

Incumbent

Persondata
Name	Willett, Don
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	July 16, 1966
Place of birth	Talty, Kaufman County, Texas, USA
Date of death
Place of death