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* UPDATED x1 - Maybe not * Illinois courts’ top administrator blasts “railroaded” subcircuits bill as “unmitigated disaster”

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* Mark Maxwell at WCIA…

The state’s new subcircuit judicial redistricting maps have “many, many issues that are in need of attention,” according to an internal memo that went out to the Chief Justices of the Illinois Supreme Court on Friday morning.

The subcircuit judicial maps, which Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law on Friday, convert a total of 33 “at-large” judgeships into “resident” judgeships. The General Assembly’s reorganization of the judiciary would shrink the numbers of Illinois’ 200 at-large judgeships down to 167, and would expand the state’s 245 resident judgeships up to 278. […]

Marcia Meis, the Director of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, vented about her frustrations to the Supreme Court justices in an email at 10:28 a.m., two days after Democrats who hold supermajorities in the General Assembly rammed their new court map proposals through both chambers without any Republican support.

* Meis’ email…

* Back to Maxwell…

Meis could not be reached directly to expand on her memo, but Christopher Bonjean, a spokesman for the Illinois Supreme Court, said, “The Director was in no way referring to the intent or substance of the law, merely the capacity to implement immediately. As we learned with judicial redistricting, implementation is something that takes time.”

The courts would not directly answer questions asking which specific legislators offered assurances to court staff about the bill’s language prior to its passage, nor would a spokesperson explain how the changes in the new redistricting law were different than what they expected. Sources familiar with the process said last minute negotiations stemming around Lake County’s 19th circuit court system, which sometimes supplies judges to hear cases in other circuits across the state, held up the legislative debate last week in the Senate until a deal was finally reached.

* Related…

* HB3138 is now law — what will that mean for Cook County judicial hopefuls?: Through an accident of drafting, Cook County’s existing countywide judicial vacancies appear not likely to be filled in the 2022 election. Maybe this will be fixed. Maybe I’ve got it wrong. If someone explains why I’m wrong to me, I’ll try and explain it to you, too.

*** UPDATE *** I just received this email…

Please see attached an order from the Supreme Court re-certifying the Lake and Madison County vacancies to subcircuits for the 2022 election.

Click here. Looks like they dealt with the “unmitigated disaster.” And there are no other implementation requirements.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jan 11, 22 @ 12:11 pm

Comments

It’s hard to say without seeing the [entire] original email, but it looks like this is a memo to the chief judges of the circuit courts, not to the Illinois Supreme Court itself. (There’s only one chief justice, but lots of chief judges.) That would explain why they would be so interested in the details of the subcircuit legislation… they’d be the ones overseeing those changes at the local level.

Comment by Dan Vock Tuesday, Jan 11, 22 @ 12:21 pm
Where was their lobbyist or legislative liaison? Particularly considering the underlying bill was something court-related the AOIC filed a witness slip about.

https://ilga.gov/legislation/Witnessslip.asp?LegDocId=173027&DocNum=3138&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=132063&GAID=16&SessionID=110&GA=102&SpecSess=&Session=&WSType=PROP

Comment by Google Is Your Friend Tuesday, Jan 11, 22 @ 12:31 pm
This is what happens when politics trumps policy

Comment by Sue Tuesday, Jan 11, 22 @ 12:36 pm
It seems wildly irresponsible to try and force this issue for the 2022 elections. They’re nowhere near where they need to be for this bill. Focus on the other far more important stuff and let’s just deal with this in 2024.

Bizarre to me that they’re continuing to waste time on this when there’s no real rush.

Comment by huh Tuesday, Jan 11, 22 @ 12:59 pm
Obscure state bureaucrat outraged at having to work.

If this is now news, there really will be a million stories out of the capital city

Comment by Nefarius Veneer Tuesday, Jan 11, 22 @ 1:36 pm
Another fine Illinois law badly drafted yet again. See also lawyer Jack Leyhane’s blog post going into some details and analysis (this blog often comes up listed on CF’s blog items).
https://leyhane.blogspot.com/2022/01/hb3138-is-now-law-what-will-that-mean.html

Comment by thisjustinagain Tuesday, Jan 11, 22 @ 4:03 pm
The term “railroaded” should never be used by supposedly nonpartisan employee of the judicial branch.

Comment by Thomas Paine Tuesday, Jan 11, 22 @ 4:24 pm
Was there any consideration on also redistricting the 24 Circuit Court districts this year? I wonder if that should have also occurred too.

Comment by NonAFSCMEStateEmployeeFromChatham Tuesday, Jan 11, 22 @ 5:10 pm