We all know that the Illinois Presidential Primary Election will occur on March 17. It is, however, not just a Presidential Primary. The election goes far beyond voting for a party’s Presidential candidate.
This blog posting provides you with information on what you’ll be voting for overall and on what our system of judicial elections means to you.
You will choose a party ballot. Depending upon your party’s having placed names on the ballot, in Suburban Cook County you will then vote for your party’s candidates for President, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, Illinois State Senate. Illinois House of Representatives, Cook County Circuit Court Clerk, Cook County State’s Attorney, Cook County Board of Review Commissioner, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and Judicial candidates.
In Chicago you will vote for the above AND for delegates and alternate delegates to the National Nominating Convention; and delegates at large and alternate delegates at large (if they have not already been selected by the state convention or chosen by a combination of the two methods).
In addition in Chicago you will vote for Democratic and Republican Party Ward Committeemen and, in some wards, on one advisory referendum.
Having said all of that necessary stuff, I now tell you that this posting’s actual purpose is both to inform you about the election and some of its details and to focus on the March primary’s judicial candidate election.
Daley Plaza Chicago
Bear with me. This is a little bit arcane, but arcane or not, it’s important.
Judicial elections are too often overlooked. They are confusing by reason of the sheer number of candidates about whom you know nothing. This is unfortunate on a number of levels. But the most important point to remember is that of all positions that have elections, there are none that are closer to you personally than judicial positions. Why? Simply this: citizens are far more likely to have to face a judge in a courtroom than they are to get personally involved with a President, a Senator or a Water Reclamation Commissioner. So you want only highly qualified judges in the courts of our county and state.
In primaries that have judicial elections, you are electing a candidate to a specific court bench. The candidate might already be a sitting judge who was appointed to fill a position vacated prior to the election. Or the candidate might be running for a position that is either currently unfilled or filled by someone who is leaving. Or the election for a position might be contested, with or without an incumbent (who might also be a candidate).
In this judicial election you will be voting for one position on the Illinois Appellate Court First District and several positions on Cook County Circuit or Subcircuit benches.
In some of the contested judicial elections you’ll be voting for one out of as many as five candidates. The winner is the one with the most votes.
Given that in many instances the Republican Party does not slate a candidate in a judicial election, in the Democratic primary the person who wins a March Primary judicial election for a particular seat is the elected judge for that seat.
So it’s very much worth your time to pay attention to how the judicial candidates have been vetted.
In Illinois, numerous bar associations vet candidates with detailed questionnaires. They then evaluate the answers to the questions they’ve asked, the legal experience of the candidate, and, if the candidate has already served as a judge, the performance of the candidate on the bench.
Each of the bar associations publishes an evaluation list prior to an election. Fortunately, the The Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening combines and publishes the efforts of 11 bar associations (not including the Chicago Bar Association, which publishes its own evaluations), The Alliance evaluations are published in a clearly understandable table that shows each candidate and the recommendation of each bar association.
2018 Screening Tables
The eleven associations that form the Alliance are:
Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Chicago Area (AABA)
Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago (BWLA)
Chicago Council of Lawyers (CCL)
Cook County Bar Association (CCBA)
Decalogue Society of Lawyers (DSL)
Hellenic Bar Association of Illinois (HBA)
Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois (HLAI)
Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA)
Lesbian and Gay Bar Association (LAGBAC)
Puerto Rican Bar Association (PRBA)
Women’s Bar Association (WBAI)
You can make decisions based simply on what you see in the overall ratings. For example, does a candidate have high ratings from all 11 of the associations? Is that enough for you to vote for the candidate? Do 9 or 10 of the associations rate the candidate highly, but one or two rate him or her not so highly? Does the disagreement make a difference to you? If it does, you can go to the individual association’s rating on their website to find out what the problem is.
I also pay attention to the ratings of candidates provided by the newspapers and media outlets. Their evaluations very often provide detail about a controversial candidate. Those stories can be very important indicators of a candidate’s likely behavior on the bench.
One important point: the March election is a straight-up choice of a candidate for a bench position. In the November General Election you will be voting ONLY for retention of judges who have already been elected to a bench. Illinois Supreme Court and Appellate Court justices serve 10-year terms; Illinois Circuit Court judges serve 6-year terms. All must run for either re-election or retention at the end of each term.
In my next blog posting on this topic I will do two things. I will give you the link to the Alliance evaluations for 2020 candidates (due out from them on February 24). I will also indicate candidates I think need either a second careful look or outright rejection, based on my reading of Association evaluations and on press and media reports.
Until then, I hope that if you’ve taken the time to read this, you find yourself better informed about how judicial elections work and what your votes will mean.
© Edmund J. McDevitt
February, 2020