Maggie Ellis, the Democrat elected as the next chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, has set out her first reform agenda, saying she wants the court to restore the American Bar Association as Texas's law-school accreditor and to revise its rule on judges officiating weddings. Ellis defeated Republican incumbent Jimmy Blacklock on 3 November, taking 52.4% of the vote.

Ellis is the first woman elected to lead the Texas Supreme Court and the first openly LGBTQ person elected to statewide office in Texas. She takes office in January 2027, when seven of the court's nine justices will be women. Democrats won all four Supreme Court seats on the ballot, although Republicans will keep a 5–4 majority on the bench.

ABA accreditation back on the table

Ellis told Bloomberg Law she wants to revisit the court's January decision to cut ties with the ABA's Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which had served as Texas's sole law-school accreditor since 1983. The Republican court ended the relationship largely in protest over the ABA's now-repealed diversity, equity and inclusion standard, according to the ABA Journal. No new approach to accrediting law schools has been announced in Texas, and there are 10 ABA-approved law schools in the state.

Ellis also told the Dallas Morning News she wants the court to revise its October 2025 comment to the Code of Judicial Conduct, so that judges who officiate weddings perform them for all couples or for none. The current rule lets a judge publicly decline to perform a marriage that conflicts with sincerely held religious beliefs. She will need support from Republican justices to change it, the Christian Post reported.

The court's clerk has confirmed the new bench will be the first majority-female court in Texas history outside a specially appointed all-woman court in 1925. The four new Democratic justices join three Republican women on the nine-member court, and all will serve six-year terms.