Christopher: RedState’s Erick Erickson Smears Wendy Davis with Bogus ‘Restraining Order’ Story
RedState chief and Fox News contributor Erick Erickson has picked up the ball that the Dallas Morning News got rolling against State Sen. and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis (D-TX) by publishing a bogus hit piece with the sensational headline “Wendy Davis’ Ex Asked a Court to Order Her Not to Use Drugs Before Seeing Her Kids.”
Erickson, a prominent supporter of Davis opponent Greg Abbott (R-TX) who once dubbed the blonde Davis “Abortion Barbie,” published a Temporary Restraining Order that he “obtained” by unspecified means, and in a separate story, explained it like this:
It is her ex-husband who talked to a left-of-center Dallas reporter. It is also her ex-husband who asked a Texas District Court to issue a temporary restraining order against Wendy Davis in 2003.
In that order, the judge ordered that Wendy Davis “be immediately restrained from . . . using illegal drugs or consuming alcohol within 24 hours before or during the period of possession of or access to the child.”
The Dallas Morning News piece tried to make a dollar out of fifteen cents worth of inaccuracies in Davis’ bio, but also touched on the subject of her divorces. In that piece, Davis acknowledged some key details, including her own decision for her daughters to remain with their father. The piece doesn’t mention the restraining order, which doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t leaked to the paper, as well. It’s just that even a newspaper airing the sexist grievances of an ex-spouse has standards, and would not make the sick suggestion that Wendy Davis was somehow unfit to be around her children based on a Temporary Restraining Order that’s actually an automatic feature of most divorces involving children. From the Divorce and Family Law in Tarrant County, Texas blog (emphasis mine):
In Texas, our Family Code provides standard language for restraining orders that can be requested and served on parties at the beginning of a divorce. To a layperson, the language may seem harsh and even accusatory. Parties who get served with a restraining order often read a lot of details into it and make a lot of assumptions. In the court system, however, little significance is attached to it.
A very common procedure is for a party to file for a divorce and request a temporary restraining order (TRO) and an order setting hearing. In some counties in Texas, there’s an automatic order that goes into effect immediately against both parties (it’s made “mutual”), to preserve the status quo. In Tarrant County, we don’t have that immediate “standing order”, but judges routinely grant TROs and then make them mutual at the first hearing date. In other words, the TRO is effective against the party who gets served with it, beginning with the time of service, and then the same language is normally applied against both parties when the judge starts making temporary orders.
Sometimes parties served with a TRO are worried that they have been accused of a wide range of bad acts. That’s not the case. A TRO is just an example of a fairly common approach in the law that says “Don’t do these things”, without saying “I think you did these things in the past”. TROs are routine and courts don’t put any significance on them as far as proof, or even accusations, of past acts.
It’s really like everyone is starting with a clean slate and the judge says to leave things as they are and don’t do anything to harm the other party.
Bottom Line: Don’t sweat it if you get served with a TRO. Take it to your lawyer and go over the details so you can comply with it in the future. Your reputation is still intact.
Not if prominent Greg Abbott supporter Erick Erickson has anything to do with it.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
