Chief Justice, Third Court of Appeals

Darlene Byrne is Chief Justice of the Third Court of Appeals, elected to that post in 2020 after serving 20 years as presiding judge of the 126th District Court in Travis County². She is the Democratic nominee for the same seat and faces Republican Cory Liu¹. Neither candidate had a primary opponent³. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct's public sanctions pages for fiscal years 2002 through 2026 list no sanction for her⁴.

• Chief Justice, Third Court of Appeals, since her election in 2020²
• Presiding judge of the 126th District Court (Travis County) for 20 years, a general jurisdiction civil trial court; she was the presiding judge over foster care cases in Travis County for 17 of those years²
• Practiced for 13 years in employment, commercial and governmental entity litigation before taking the bench; law degree from the University of Houston Law Center, 1987²³
• Founding judge of the Travis County Family Drug Treatment Court; past president of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges; named Texas Judge of the Year by Texas ABOTA in 2023²
• Elected judge of the 126th District Court in 2000 and Chief Justice of the Third Court of Appeals in 2020, according to the court's biography². She is the Democratic nominee for the November 3, 2026 general election and had no primary opponent³.
• Public discipline: Searched the State Commission on Judicial Conduct public sanctions pages for fiscal years 2002 through 2026 (every year the site lists) on 2026-10-02, by surname; no public sanction naming this candidate was found. The FY2026 page covers only sanctions published through that date. Private sanctions are not published by name, and the Commission's separate suspension and resignation lists were searched by surname with no match.⁴