The Supreme Court Looks at Judicial Campaign Fundraising

On October 2, 2014, the Supreme Court granted cert in Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar, examining the constitutionality under the First Amendment of a state ethical rule barring candidates for state judicial posts from personally soliciting campaign donations. Lanell Williams-Yulee was a candidate...
October 22, 2014

Judicial Elections

Early voting has already started in Cook County and there are 101 judicial races: 27 vacancies, 73 retention elections and 1 new judicial seat. Voteforjudges.org—a non-partisan website founded by Chicago Appleseed and sponsored by the Committee to Elect Qualified Judges—collects the judicial evalua...
October 21, 2014

Judicial Election Spending

By Aswan Taylor, Intern for Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice A wave of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, culminating in last week’s McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission ruling, have diverged from the formidable pull of public sentiment and mounting research to reassert the role of financi...
April 24, 2014

Breakfast Panel on Government Reform

The Committee for Economic Development, in partnership with Chicago Appleseed, Business and Professional People in the Public Interest,  Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, CHANGE Illinois, Union League Club, and the Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy, offered an interesting panel discussion at...
March 27, 2014

March 2014 Judicial Primaries

We at Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice want to thank those of you who used VoteForJudges.org for the March 2014 primary.   Later this summer, VoteForJudges.org  will be updated with information for the judicial retention elections that are part of the General Election to be held in November 2014....
March 20, 2014