Posted on 06/30/2022 6:02:07 AM PDT by cotton1706
Two Republican candidates seeking a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court remained locked in a race too close to call following Tuesday’s primary. With 95% of the expected vote in, former Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran had a 1.5 percentage point lead over Lake County Circuit Judge Daniel Shanes.
Whoever ultimately prevails will face Democratic primary winner Elizabeth “Liz” Rochford in November to fill the vacant seat left by the retirement of former Chicago Bears kicker Bob Thomas. The 2nd Judicial District has consistently elected Republican justices to the seat since the 1960s, but the Democratic-controlled legislature recently redrew the district boundaries.
Shanes, who was found “highly recommended” for the judicial seat by the Illinois State Bar Association, won endorsements from the Lake County Republican Party, Illinois Senate GOP Leader Dan McConchie and the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police while out-fundraising his three opponents. Citizens for Judicial Fairness, a conservative independent expenditure committee funded primarily by Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, spent more than $170,000 to support his bid.
Curran, also a former federal and local prosecutor, was rated “not recommended” by the bar group, and his election committee had only $10,000 at the end of the last reporting period in late March, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections. Citizens for Judicial Fairness spent roughly $50,000 to oppose his run for a seat on the court.
Curran may have benefited from name recognition with 2nd District voters, having served as the Lake County sheriff from 2006 to 2018 as well as unsuccessfully running against U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin in 2020. During that Senate bid, Curran received a shoutout from then-President Donald Trump at an October rally in Wisconsin and snagged nearly 40% of the statewide vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
“Elections”, for state supreme court???
Illinois needs some Constitutional change.
Elected judges tend to follow their political bias against laws they simply don’t like, inventing “constitutional” mandates based on their political bias.
The one giant thing the people controlled by the Left fail to undertand about the SCOTUS Roe V Wade decision is that it is not really about any judge’s opinion about abortion, its about the Constitutionally wrong way the Roe decision was decided. It is a very legalist and actually politically unbiased decision, about the law, not policy.
The SCOTUS decision against was really about how the Roe decision usurped the Constitution’s authorship, given ONLY to “we the people (acting through our elected reprenstatives) and presumed for the court a role of a super legislature that the Constitution never gave it.
Elected Supreme Court judges would never had so much respect for the Constitution - they would not have gotten elected if they did.
Elected is the best IL can hope for. What’s the other choice, appointed by the rat Governor?
IL has 7 Justices, 3 from Cook (remarkedly Cook maintains about 3/7th of the population) and 4 districts for the rest of the state (no county splitting).
In the past this meant 3 rats from Cook (1 used to vote conservative) and 1 rat from Southern IL and the other 3 GOP, in 2000 the last open race for the seat a rat narrowly won the western IL seat. In 2004 the GOP won the southern seat.
You vote to “retain” Judges, they need 60%. In 2020 the rat in the western seat FAILED to be retained thanks to the voters! That seat is now up this year and we can win it and take control of the court provided we also hold the seat that this article is talking about (Chi Collar counties, none of Chicago, Cotton). I’m not positive who would be the better Justice but Curran (leading the primary count..IDK if they are done..) has the name recognition and crossover appeal to win the election.
Then if they had balls they could even toss out the rat gerrymanders. One can dream.
Some states have systems where basically the bar association decides who gets it, that’s the worst. They call it the Missouri system or something.
I supported Curran in the race and I can tell you the old bar guard really despises him, I met him several times, Mark is a Law&Order Sheriff from Lake County and he’s got solid values and principles. Illinois really needs him on the court.
7
Curran has declared victory in the primary. That it’s taking this long to count is INSANE. This is as bad as California now.
Dems scared of a GOP court
New map for the first time since 1962, certainly made both seats up (2 and 3) worse.
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