Litigation

High Spending Sparks Calls for IL Election Reform

By Peter Hardin

With special interests spending skyrocketing sums to influence judicial elections, reform advocates are calling for changes to the way state Supreme Court justices are chosen in Illinois.

An article entitled “High court, high cost” in Illinois Issues, a public affairs periodical, quotes from the Justice at Stake Campaign for data about soaring spending on judicial elections in the past decade.

The magazine also quotes extensively from JAS partners about the resulting “threat to the public?s already shaky faith” in our courts. Among proposed reforms are public financing of judicial elections and merit-based selection of high court judges.

?The elections are going to get more and more expensive and nastier,? warned Dawn Clark Netsch, a director of the American Judicature Society and a former Illinois comptroller. She continued:

?People don?t believe they can trust their judges, their impartiality, their fairness, their lack of bias. This is just a disaster for our whole system in this country because the independence of the judiciary is almost totally dependent on the acceptance of the fact that they are to be trusted.?

?I think there?s a lot of concern among elected officials about the way these races have escalated,? remarked Cynthia Canary, a JAS board member and executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, another JAS partner. ?The parties have to be looking at this and saying, ?We?ve got to call a truce on this arms race somewhere.??

The article pays special attention to last year’s retention (up-or-down) election for the Illinois Supreme Court. Justice Thomas Kilbride raised about $2.5 million from labor interests, plaintiffs? lawyers and other groups channeling funds through the Illinois Democratic Party in order to beat back a $650,000 ouster drive by business and insurance interests.

?I hope no one else would have to go through the kind of campaign I just finished,” Justice Kilbride told the magazine. “It damages the judiciary by undermining its independence and questioning the fairness and impartiality of judges in their decision-making. As judges, we wear a black robe, not a red or a blue one.”

The article relies on JAS for its reporting that “nationally, spending on state supreme court races more than doubled between 1999 and 2009, compared with the previous decade, to $206.9 million from $83.3 million.” The data was issued in a report co-authored by JAS, called ?The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2000-2009: Decade of Change,?

You can learn more about public financing of judicial elections from the JAS issues page on the topic, and about merit selection by clicking here.

Full post as published by The Gavel on March 02, 2011 (boomark / email).