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Briefing schedule, threats issued

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Illinois

* The appellate court has issued a briefing schedule on Bruce Rauner’s term limits/etc. constitutional amendment…

The case will proceed in accordance with the following briefing schedule:

a. Intervenor-appellants will tile their appellate brief on or before July 29, 2014.
b. Plaintiffs-appellees will .file tl!eir response brief on or before August 7, 2014.
c. Intervenor-appellants will file their reply brief on or before August 11, 2014.

And then the court has to write the opinion. And then it’ll go to the Supremes. As I’ve been saying for a while now, the state ballot needs to be certified by August 22nd.

* Meanwhile…

Sources tell Illinois Review that Howard Rich, founder and president of U.S. Term Limits, has decided to take on Illinois, and may be targeting the Illinois Supreme Court, district by district, as each judicial retention vote comes up.

This doesn’t seem an idle threat. Rich is a veteran political activist who has given and raised millions of dollars, and bats close to 1,000 when it comes to exacting a price on those he targets. He’s taken out state Supreme Court justices in Nebraska, Missouri, and Wisconsin. And the Illinois judges who failed to grant the appeal seem ripe targets for Rich.

Sources tell IR that Rich is already evaluating Judge Mikva’s district and has begun assembling a team to wage a retention vote against her in 2016. Mikva bounced both the term limits and fair maps amendments from the ballot at the district court level, invalidating millions of voter signatures. The type of judicial action for which Rich has successfully unseated judges before.

In addition to Mikva, sources say Rich is eyeing Illinois Supreme Court retentions as well.

The only Supreme Court justice up for retention this year is Lloyd Karmeier, a Republican. It’s also possible that the Supremes could just issue an opinion after the election if the appellate branch sides with the circuit court.

The next member of the high court isn’t up until 2018 (Ann Burke). Judge Mikva isn’t up for retention until 2016.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 10:42 am

Comments

“But, but…but we want to punish them for following the Constitution!”

Dopes.

Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 10:45 am
Rauner wants to show us he’ll govern by threats. Dopes.

Comment by anon Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 10:52 am
Empty threats issued by a bunch who don’t get their facts straight.

Too bad they didn’t get involved more proactively instead of just sending money to the bunch who screwed up the signature-gathering process.

Comment by LincolnLounger Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 10:52 am
Hey could someone clue Mr Smart Guy Howard Rich and tell him well funded IL whack jobs already target judges. Remember Ed Murnane went after Kilbride? But of course they did such a poor job that pre-hysterical Tribbie Edit Board attacked him.
BTW is Flip Rauner sanctioning this tirade. Could set a bad tone for any of his legal schemes in the unlikely event he gets elected.
Heck it might not help with any of BizWiz schemes once he losses….OPPs
Fire, Aim Ready

Comment by CircularFiringSquad Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 10:55 am
The documentary Hot Coffee has a good portion that discusses the high stakes battle of state supreme court elections as it relates to civil lawsuits and big business interests pouring in millions to shape judicial elections. It’s no surprise that in our dark money, big spending PAC era, other people or groups want to do the same thing for their particular interest.

Comment by Precinct Captain Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 10:55 am
As I mentioned before, the US Chamber of Commerce came after Kilbride.

They got spanked.

No Justice is going to be unseated for upholding precedent.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 10:57 am
“without fear or favor”

Comment by x ace Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 11:07 am
Good luck targeting Judge Mikva. Awfully tough to take out a Cook County judge on a retention vote. Hasn’t been done since 1990. That’s what happens when there are 60 or 70 judges on the ballot for retention all at once.

To get 60 percent of Cook County voters to cast “no” votes on Mikva — or any other Cook County judge — I’m guessing this Howard Rich dude would probably have to spend at least $2 or 3 million on advertising in the Chicago media market. That’s a lot of cash for one lowly circuit court judge.

Part of me wishes he would succeed. Maybe if a highly respected and politically connected jurist got bounced for merely citing a well known Supreme Court precendent, the political world would wake up and change the judicial retention process in Cook County.

Comment by Frank T. Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 11:12 am
This is Illinois.
Our political leaders assure us that voters don’t want freedom of choice, they want freedom from choice.

And if you disagree with that, then you are called a dope.

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 11:13 am
This is Illinois. We expect our judges to apply the law and precedent, consistent with our Constitution.

This is an out-of-state, nationally-funded PAC. We expect to target, punish and remove any Illinois judge who doesn’t agree with our political ideology.

Comment by walker Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 11:47 am
BTW, Mikva is a top notch judge. Her critics don’t know what they’re talking about.

Comment by too obvious Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 11:59 am
US Term Limits has been spectacularly unsuccessful in dislodging Members of Congress who made a term limit pledge then later broke it.

The last time a Judge in Illinois wasn’t retained was when? Maybe Mikva loses 2% and instead of the usual 70% gets 68%.

If he would like to try his bag of tricks here, he’s more than welcome. Bring lots of $$$, dude. And prepare to see a 0 success rate.

Comment by low level Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 12:01 pm
===The last time a Judge in Illinois wasn’t retained was when?===

The year Karmeyer won.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 12:04 pm
Very True…but if Rich and US Term Limits is basing his calculation on that, he’ll be disappointed.

Comment by low level Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 12:10 pm
I do worry about the fundamental undermining of the rule of law that Howard Rich seeks & has apparently succeeded at before. For our country’s system to work requires judges to uphold the law, not to worry about pleasing those who spend money on political campaigns. To a large extent this use of money to sway judges is worse ultimately than the use of money in executive/legislative races. It’s one thing if legislature choose laws based on donor’s preference. It’s much harder to plan things or invest somewhere if you don’t know what the law is because judges have to make things up to please Howard Rich or whomever else would spend big money on judicial races.

Comment by Illiana Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 12:20 pm
This guy wants to use the term limit method we already have in place to limit the term of judges he disagrees with. Good for him. Now if he’d only stop his goofy drive to get term limits in the law and recognize that elections are the only term limit method we need.

Comment by Demoralized Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 12:54 pm
Illinois Review claims to know what Howard Rich is up to?

They must have some source. Rich’s modus operandi is generally indirection and obfuscation.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/06/rich-rewards-one-mans-shadow-money-network/

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 1:01 pm
I am not positive if the Appellate Court needs to write a full opinion; it might dispose of the case with an order indicating its decision and stating that a full opinion will follow at a later date. The Illinois Supreme Court has enough talent and resources to wrestle with the issues without guidance from the intermediate court in the form of an opinion.

Comment by Under Further Review Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 1:09 pm
@YDD: I don’t think the US Chamber was the leader of the effort to not retain Kilbride. I think they did put in money, but I think that had a hypbrid committee and was led more by the Illinois Civil Justice League, Gidwitz, and Baise.

The US Chamber did lead the effort against Gordon Maag, who was on the ballot both for retention and as a candidate for the IL Supreme Court.

Maag lost both, and being the classic Madison County lawyer-type, promptly sued all his opponents for $100 million plus.

I also think Maag was the first one to step up and file a lawsuite against retired judges being required to pay for any portion of their health care coverage.

People can diss the Chamber, but Karmeier and Garman wouldn’t have been elected without them.

Comment by LincolnLounger Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 1:26 pm
This sort of threat is always a problem when judges are elected. The system stinks.

Comment by Archiesmom Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 1:28 pm
IR’s source is John Tillman or Joe Walsh who worked for Howard Rich. Since Tillman sponsors IR’s website - its the mouthpiece for his views.

Comment by anon Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 3:11 pm
Judge Mikva was elected from the 8th Subcircuit, however her “district” for purposes of retention is all of Cook County. Perhaps Mr. Rich could be excused for his ignorance of Illinois judicial retention elections, but unless the Illinois Review is quoting him or his sources directly, wouldn’t you think they should know that the “district” is a county.

Comment by West Side the Best Side Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 4:19 pm
Maag represented an unusual situation where he was running for retention at the same time as he was running in a contested, bitter, partisan election. Not a good benchmark for comparison.

Comment by Zoom Wednesday, Jul 23, 14 @ 5:26 pm