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Karmeier “cautiously optimistic” about victory

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* From a press release…

The Karmeier Retention Campaign Manager, Ron Deedrick offered the following statement on November 5, after the unofficial retention numbers came in on Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier’s successful bid.

“Justice Karmeier has been retained and he is thankful for the voters of the Fifth Judicial District for sending him back to Springfield to be their southern Illinois voice at the state Supreme Court,” Deedrick said. “The numbers are close, but the 60 percent threshold has been achieved and we are cautiously optimistic that the numbers may continue to edge up.”

Last I heard they were at 60.4 or something.

…Adding… BND…

The unofficial totals of the 37 counties compiled by the News-Democrat show 225,825 ballots were cast to retain Karmeier with 146,754 against retention. That’s 60.6 percent of voters approving retention for Karmeier. He was required to get 60 percent of the vote. […]

But that may not be the end of the fight, Deedrick said. He expects recounts and legal challenges to the results.

In the month before the election, Karmeier faced an anti-retention campaign, with lawyers from the Korein Tillery law firm donating $1.2 million. Korein Tillery won a $10 billion verdict, including $1.77 billion in legal fees, against cigarette maker Phillip Morris in a Madison County class action lawsuit. That case is currently under appeal.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 2:17 pm

Comments

Seems much closer than the retention ballot challenge to Justice Kilbride a few years ago.

Comment by Upon Further Review Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 2:24 pm
The mailers and ads the trial lawyers used against Karmeier attacked him from the right which confused a lot of voters who hadn’t even heard of the retention election up until a few weeks ago.

Comment by Downstate Illinois Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 2:29 pm
The Karmeier/Maag race was 10 years ago. Hence, the Karmeier name didn’t register with lots of new-to-the-area and young voters. That was scary close.

Comment by Downstate Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 2:31 pm
WSIL TV has a county-by-county breakdown of the race. They have him at 60.69% without including East St. Louis, which he received 62%. Real interesting that he did better in the Democratic areas than in the Republican counties.

Comment by Way Too Close Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 2:38 pm
UFR - yes, and the people who coordinated the Kilbride anti-retention effort have told me that they needed double the money they raised to accomplish such a feat.

My take is that Karmeier did not expect this. He waited too long to start touring the district and making a push.

Comment by Team Sleep Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 3:04 pm
Team Sleep, and in addition to twice the money, a better message and better campaign approach. They ran the wrong campaign, and did it amateurishly. nice people, decent campaign pedigrees, but judicial politics are a different breed. They did, however, very nearly worry him to death!

Comment by in the know Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 3:15 pm
The development of the retention ballot has really changed the judicial election process over the methods used decades ago when judges had to stand for reelection using party labels.

Comment by Upon Further Review Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 3:16 pm
They went after GOP voters in their attacks against Karmeier, painting him as some sort of liberal judge to confuse people who maybe weren’t familiar with him. I received 10 mailers attacking Karmeier in the final 8 days of the election. They also trotted out a widow of a fallen state trooper who accused Karmeier of accepting a bribe. Her husband was killed by a DOT Foods semi truck a couple years ago in Montgomery County, and her personal injury lawyer filed the case in Madison County, where we all know is extremely favorable to the plaintiff’s lawyers. The Madison County judge ruled that the venue could not be changed or appealed. DOT Foods appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, who then ruled 7-0 that the Appellate Court could hear the appeal. The Appellate Court then voted to change the venue to Montgomery County where the accident actually occurred. During this whole process, DOT Foods made a contribution to Karmeier’s retention campaign. So, somehow, the lawyer and the widow made the claim that Karmeier took a bribe and single-handedly changed the venue. She was doing robocalls claiming as such, and even though it was completely false, I think the average voter didn’t know any different and it took its toll on Karmeier.

Comment by econ prof Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 3:19 pm
ITK - yes, and that was a year that was ripe to push an anti-retention measure through. Someone really screwed the pooch in the 3rd.

Comment by Team Sleep Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 3:26 pm
I heard that the anti-Karmier folks were micro targeting republican voters. it was a sofisticated operation sprang at the last minute hoping on speed, volence and surpise of attack.

it almost worked

Comment by Todd Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 3:33 pm
It is risky to go after a judge. Yes you can now claim retaliation if you lose your case now that you lost, but courts often close ranks to protect their own. I would be very surprised if the PM case has a 4-3 decision either way.

Comment by the Patriot Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 3:34 pm
Another effort by the trial lawyers to rule the state. Failure. Time to reign in the trial lawyers and the greedy behavior.

Comment by Apocalypse Now Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 3:39 pm
A vote against a judge for retention should be based on something more than a disagreement with a particularly ruling. It was especially troubling in this case, where the money behind the anti-retention vote appears to come from people who could benefit from a specific ruling in a case. This was a victory for judicial independence, and should not have been as close as it was.

Comment by orzo Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 3:53 pm
The mailers were targeted–the ones I got were warning Democrats about him. I suppose they sent Republican voters one set of ads and Democratic voters another set. There was some bipartisan effort, at least in Jackson County, by local attorneys buying ads to support Karmeier. These ads ran in the Southern Illinoisan. We know him as an honest, thoughtful judge–a little to the right of ideal for my taste, but not the sort of thing that should keep him from being retained. In addition,he has long been actively involved with SIU School of Law, first when he was a trial judge by mentoring law students in the local Inn of Court, and later by participating in first year student professionalism training. I hope his numbers for retention hold up. We need to rethink judicial selection processes. Both the Maag/Karmeier race and this retention election show how vulnerable judicial elections are to money politics.

Comment by redeft Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 4:32 pm
It would be interesting to compare the similarities and differences between the Kilbride and Karmeier races.

Comment by TGEO Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 6:21 pm
As close as they ended up it looks like if they had started the anti-Karmeier campaign a week earlier they probably would have kept him below 60%. That way they could have gotten more early voters to vote against him.

Comment by Down Here Wednesday, Nov 5, 14 @ 7:07 pm