Elections and Judicial Integrity

Last week, the Sun-Times ran a piece about the new pension-reform law, examining the overlap judicial election campaign contributors and pension-stakeholders, in the context of a potential lawsuit challenging the pension-reform law. The piece raises some important questions of how judicial campaign...
January 7, 2014

Ballot Order for Judicial Retention Candidates

Ballot order for judicial retention candidates is essentially nonsensical to the voter. They’re not alphabetical. The ballot order of retention candidates is not based on filing date, either. They are in an order set by statute, 10 ILCS 5/16-6.1 The judicial retention candidates are identified on t...
February 15, 2013

New York’s Judicial Campaign Reform a Great Start

The New York Administrative Board of Courts recently issued a new rule that would prohibit judges from hearing cases where any one of the lawyers or parties on either side has contributed $2,500 or more to that judge’s election campaign. (The case will be transferred if a lawyer’s firm has contribut...
March 17, 2011