Refurbishing image: put judicial selection on ballot

By CHARLES N. WHEELER III

To many Illinoisans, relying on the General Assembly to do the right thing is tantamount to trusting Joe Isuzu to give a straight answer on a car's performance. It's no secret that, like the mythical automobile pitchman, lawmakers are taken with a considerable dose of skepticism by many of their constituents —just read the letters to the editor in any newspaper.

And legislators don't help their own cause when they indulge in ill-conceived, ill-advised schemes like the aborted backdoor pay raise with which the 85th General Assembly bowed out. The plan, which would have given $6,000-a-year bonuses to committee chairmen and spokesmen, was appended like a barnacle to a wide-ranging pension measure that included more modest benefits for other public servants. The package sailed through the Senate — two-thirds of whose members don't face the voters until 1992 — but was soundly defeated in the House, where all 118 seats are up next year.

Do legislators deserve pay raises? Certainly. Should they come in the form of last-minute additions by lame-duck lawmakers to important legislation? Of course not. They should be approved upfront in a spring session, but only after lawmakers have provided adequately for education and human services.

Even though the outgoing legislature decided not to shoot itself in the foot on the pay raise issue, the incident did nothing to help the legislative image. The new General Assembly, however, will have a splendid opportunity to respond to the cynics and the skeptics and, in the process, to vindicate voters who opposed the call for a constitutional convention.

This image-burnishing can be accomplished simply by allowing voters to decide whether judges should continue to be elected or should be appointed under a so-called merit selection plan. Placing the proposal on the 1990 ballot would silence those who portray the legislature as an aloof and unresponsive body dominated by special interests, a theme that echoed through much of the pro-Con Con rhetoric.

Among the most prestigious of those calling for another convention were merit selection advocates who were thoroughly frustrated by the legislature's unyielding opposition to a judicial selection amendment, even in the wake of the Operation Greylord scandal in Cook County. Under the banner of "Con Con for Court Reform," they included the deans of seven Illinois law schools, two former U.S attorneys, eight current or past presidents of the Chicago Bar Association and the Chicago Council of Lawyers, and the leaders of the special panel named to recommend post-Greylord reforms.

"For nearly two decades, the Illinois legislature has refused to allow the citizens of Illinois to vote on whether to amend the Illinois Constitution to provide for merit selection of judges," said one of the group's leaders, Frederick J. Sperling, president of the Chicago Council of Lawyers. "Due to the legislature's inaction, a state constitutional convention is now the only recourse available to the voters of Illinois who want judges selected based on their ability and integrity, rather than their political clout."

On the other hand, the basic premise underlying the arguments against another convention was the belief that lawmakers could be relied upon to propose amendments to correct whatever minor flaws existed in an otherwise well-crafted document. Indeed, that very thesis was advanced in this column 16 months ago in concluding that there was no compelling need to open the 1970 charter to wholesale revision.

Whether voters last November actually took that message to heart, or merely responded to the $30 million price tag foes slapped on a new convention, their choice was clear: The call was rejected by more than a 3-to-1 margin. Now it's up to the legislature to justify the faith placed in it

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by those who held that a convention was not needed because responsible lawmakers would rise to the challenge of constitutional reform.

And no issue is more suited to the task than judicial selection, regardless of one's feelings about the merits of appointing. rather than electing, judges. Unlike most of the other grievances raised by Con-Con advocates — which were essentially legislative matters not resolved to the activists' liking — judicial selection is truly a constitutional issue that can be revised only by amendment. Moreover, given Cook County's well-documented problems, it's a question that voters should be given the opportunity to address, as merit selection backers urge.

Despite their ill-fated Con Con foray, the merit selection forces have not abandoned hope. Instead, virtually all those who climbed aboard the convention bandwagon have rechristened themselves Citizens for Court Reform and are gearing up for another vigorous campaign. "We're not lying clown and dying." vowed Donna Schiller, executive director of the group. "We're not going to give the General Assembly a pass."

The group plans again to advance a plan modeled after a gubernatorial task force's recommendations, in which Supreme and Appellate court justices would be appointed by the governor from candidates nominated by special screening committees made up of lawyers and laymen, and voters in each judicial circuit would choose whether their trial judges would be elected or appointed.

Though a Senate committee scuttled essentially the same proposal by a 2-to-1 margin last April, the idea deserves a better fate in the 86th General Assembly.

Allowing voters to decide how judges ought to be chosen should be given high priority by Gov. James R. Thompson, whose past efforts on behalf of a judicial amendment have been less than spectacular. The business and labor leaders who united so effectively to oppose the Con-Con call also should feel obliged to put no less effort into the judicial cause. Most of all. the merit selection drive should be joined by any lawmaker who would like to improve upon the legislature's Rodney Dangerfield image.

Charles N. Wheeler III is a correspondent in the Springfield Bureau of the Chicago Sun-Times

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