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Illinois

A new bill has been introduced for public financing of appellate and state Supreme Court races.

…The measure would create a public financing system with political donation limits, potentially staving off races like the recent brutal judicial elections in downstate Illinois, proponents say. Both the 2004 state Supreme Court race and the 2006 appellate court contest in the 5th District set statewide, if not national, records for campaign spending at their respective levels. […]

The new bill, sponsored by state Sens. Kirk Dillard, R-Westmont, and Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, would use court fees and voluntary donations from taxpayers to fund candidates for the state Supreme and appellate courts. Coupled with such a system would be federal-style campaign contribution limits in those races; donations would be limited to $2,000 from corporation, labor organization and political committees or individuals per candidate during an election cycle. […]

“Of all three branches of government, the one that the public absolutely must think is not controlled by campaign contributions are the appellate courts and Supreme courts,” Dillard said in a recent interview. “Given the races we’ve seen, we know something has to be done.” […]

But business interests say they are late entries to judicial politics in Illinois, noting that judicial elections have historically been funded by contributions from lawyers. Ed Murnane, president of the Illinois Civil Justice League, which favors tort reform, said the elections of recent years point to a need for more drastic overhaul â€” a merit selection process in which judges are appointed instead of elected.

I couldn’t find the legislation online yet, but go ahead and debate the merits anyway.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 9:29 am

Comments

I have a much better, and easier idea regarding this: don’t let any court candidates spend any money on ads. They can run, but out of respect for the position they are running for - no money for campaigning. Personal, or private. NONE.

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 9:36 am
Restricting the free speech of the people is the McCain-Feingold way of controlling elections. Illinois should be better than that.

Comment by Fan of the Game Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 10:09 am
I can’t support that. If we’re going to publicly finance judicial races where is it going to stop. I’d rather there would be caps on how much a candidate can raise and/or spend than to force people who wouldn’t donate to a campaign through their taxes.

If we’re concerned about judicial races and the amount of money spent perhaps Illinois should consider appointment of judges at certain levels rather than electing most of them from the circuit court to the supreme court as is current now.

Comment by Levois Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 10:12 am
Direct voice of the people is the best. Tax payers dollars should never be used for a candidate. I am a strong supporter of a litmus test by your group or my group.I want to know where a Judge stands on certain issues, I want to know his political affiliation and his religious or lack of religious views. My convictions are my vote.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 10:42 am
It does not matter to me what their ads say because I try to keep track of their rulings and sentences and I base my vote on those.

Comment by i d Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 10:42 am
Vanilla Man has an interesting idea, but then judges would be chosen by party primaries and then by a straight partyline vote that would depend on the political trends of the individual counties or appellate districts.

Is that really a way to choose how our third branch governs?

The local democrat party chose judges through the party system for years in Madison County and look where that got us? It was rumored that five firms had five former partners or associates on the bench and they controlled the five votes necessary to appoint the twelve or so associate positions, which is the farm team for future circuit judges.

An interesting system is Delaware, where each court in the state must have a one seat majority of one major party and then almost-equal representation of the other major party. Judges are appointed by the Governor. Constitutionally, there must always be just a one-seat difference in the partisan breakdown.

Comment by Madison County Watcher Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 11:48 am
Would agree with “Fan of the Game” about limiting contributions…

Also, court costs and fees are already high enough, throughout the entire state, causing problems for people/litigants and to tack on more for court costs is unfair and hurts the common person needing to litigate, etc.

Comment by Common sense Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 12:56 pm
Senate Bill 222

Comment by Jeff Trigg Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 1:11 pm
i d — that works fine for incumbents, what about open races?

Court fees are already too high and court resources are spread too thin. It’s hard for some people to get justice in civil court because of the high fees and long delays. Adding another surcharge, or spending more court money is only going to make it worse.

Additionally, the reason some candidates are underfunded is that they DESERVE to be underfunded, i.e. they are idiots.

Comment by HoosierDaddy Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 2:36 pm
As a matter of constitutional law, there’s no way that the Illinois legislature could restrict the absolute amount of money candidates for judicial office want to spend, right? All they could do is limit the contributions (perfectly constitutional), and then say, “Hey, if you’d prefer, there’s this free pile of untainted money over here you could use, instead of fundraising it yourself.”

There’s no legal way that Illinois can compel anybody to use this public funding, if candidates for judicial office prefer to go it alone. Even the presidential system is 100% voluntary (as we’re seeing now, as basically everyone, Barack included, is bailing out of it).

I fail to see then how this would truly restrict free speech. The only way it could (and this is a fair concern, for libertarians) is if the individual contribution levels were set so low, a candidate for judicial office really had no choice but to go the public funding route, for lack of individuals to pay for a private-funded race. But I doubt that would be such a problem in Illinois. If a candidate for the bench wants to run as the paid for and supported supplicant to the trial lawyers / big business / pick a group, they could still do that. This would just open up a route for someone who’d prefer not to play that game.

Would need more look at the specifics but in theory this seems like a promising idea.

Comment by ZC Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 3:35 pm
The public funding of judicial elections is an outrage! How do you expect me to buy a judge?

Comment by Ali Bin Haddin Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 5:31 pm
Although this would help, it doesn’t take away the conflict problem that all elected judges are saddled with. It’s time to get rid of judicial elections!

Comment by JRP Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 7:27 pm
So, instead of judges being beholding to local politicians, they should be bebeholding to the Governor?

Boy, would that compromise lawyer-legislators…unless they could not be appointed, say, within 5 years of leaving office.

Judgeships have traditionally been a way for lawyer-legislators to fatten their pensions.

Comment by Cal Skinner Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 9:46 pm
how would they stop the hate speech from the u.s. chamber and their clones?

Comment by reddbyrd Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 10:09 pm