High visibility
The platforms may seem obscure, but, make no mistake, the winners of the Supreme Court races could rule on such hot-button issues as HMO reform, tuition ttax credits and gradparents' rights
by Aaron Chambers and John Flynn Rooney
In an otherwise boring statewide election year, three races promise to make it worth voters' while to get to the polls this month.
The campaigns in three districts of the Illinois Supreme Court offer a range of candidates as colorful as the office they've set their eyes on. This field includes a few of Illinois' most prominent jurists and a former Chicago Bears placekicker. The platforms may seem a tad obscure - candidates for judicial office can't discuss legal questions they might face later - but, make no mistake, the winners of these races could rule on such hot-button issues as health maintenance organ-ization reform, tuition tax credits and grandparents' rights.
"The court tends to get into the role of policy-making, whether directly or indirectly, in many, if not most, of its decisions," says retired Supreme Court Justice John L. Nickels. "Sitting on the Supreme Court permits each of the justices the opportunity and the responsibility to put forth their view of what they feel the law of the state of Illinois is or should be or both and their individual reasoning and rationale for arriving at what they believe the law is or should be."
Illinois' highest court has gained considerable visibility in the wake of recent decisions striking down anti-crime laws, among others, because, the justices argued, lawmakers violated the state Constitution's requirement that laws be confined to a single subject.
And that's just for starters. Also looming, some court observers say, is controversy surrounding Justice James D. Heiple, who was censured in 1997 for using his judicial office to avoid traffic tickets.
As it happens, the majority of the high court's seven seats are in flux this year. Voters will decide who will serve for the next 10 years in two of its three Cook County seats, in the Elgin-based 2nd District and in the Ottawa-based 3rd District.
At 77, Justice Michael A. Bilandic, a Democrat who has represented Cook County's 1st District, is too old to run for retention under Illinois law, which bars judges who turn 75 during their terms from seeking retention. In the 2nd District, Justice S. Louis Rathje, a Republican, was appointed last January to replace Nickels, but Rathje must now run for election. In the 3rd District, Heiple has not filed for retention - at least at this writing.
Meanwhile, Justice Charles E. Freeman, a Democrat, is running for retention in Cook County. In an uncontested, nonpartisan race,Freeman must win a 60 percent "yes" vote in the November general election to keep his seat.
The high court's Democratic majority hasn't changed in years and isn't likely to change this year. Voters in Cook County and the Mount Vernon-based 5th District traditionally elect Democrats; voters in the 2nd District, 3rd District and Springfield-based 4th
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District traditionally elect Republicans. And because candidates for the court can't promise voters or contributors what they'll decide when they get to the bench, picking a justice may seem like a strange affair.
Still, candidates are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on votes. In Cook County and in the 2nd District, where the primary contests have been going on for a year candidates are expected to shatter the spending record for judicial races.
In their bids to replace Bilandic, 1st District Appellate Justice Morton Zwick,1st District Appellate Justice William Cousins Jr. and Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas R. Fitzgerald raised a combined $1.3 million in 1999, according to State Board of Elections figures. The three Democrats, together with Chicago attorney Christine P. Curran, also a Democrat, will face off in the March 21 primary election. Curran said she wasn't going to raise funds until a challenge to her nominating petitions was resolved.
Big money landed in the 2nd District, too, where Rathje is fighting three contenders for his seat. He and his GOP primary opponents - 2nd District Appellate Justice Bob Thomas of West Chicago and DuPage County Circuit Judge Bonnie M. Wheaton - raised a combined $1.27 million in 1999, including hundreds of thousands of dollars Rathje and Wheaton gave to their own campaigns. Chicago attorney Larry D. Drury, a Democrat, is also running, but he has no primary opponent and has not started fundraising. (Drury can run in the 2nd District because he lives in Highland Park.) Candidates had just started spending at this writing, but with Zwick reportedly prepared to spend $1 million and Rathje's campaign saying he'll spend up to $750,000, the record appeared headed for the history books. The $447,631 spent by Heiple in his 1990 race for the high court is believed to be the record.
Fundraising has not been as much of an issue in the 3rd District race, but cash has nonetheless split the GOP opponents. State Sen. Carl E. Hawkinson, a Galesburg Republican, has a standing Senate campaign fund with - according to 1999 figures - $217,094 that he can transfer to his Supreme Court fund. On the other hand, 3rd District Appellate Justice William E. Holdridge of Farmington had $1,100 in his fund at the end of 1999. The lone Democrat running for the seat, Rock Island attorney Thomas L. Kilbride, had $15,923.
"For a Supreme Court race that's not a statewide race, you're getting into really serious money. There's no question about it," says Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield and director of the Sunshine Project, which tracks campaign spending. "They are becoming modern campaigns in terms of spending money on media, direct mail, those sorts of things. As campaigns get more sophisticated, they get more expensive."
Campaign officials say several factors, including escalating television advertising rates, have made judicial races more expensive. They also note that judicial races don't traditionally garner much attention, so candidates must work harder - and spend more - to get their names out.
One way to do that, three candidates found, is with a little spice: Zwick, Rathje and Wheaton have gone beyond traditional campaign fare like hats and buttons, and are littering the campaign trail with clever paraphernalia. Zwick is distributing fortune cookies promising "health and happiness" to his supporters. Rathje has cookbooks with heart healthy recipes approved by his wife, a cardiologist. And Wheaton campaign volunteers have handed out buttons asking voters to "Pick the Chick." Third District candidates
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haven't taken to gimmicks, but the race has its own color. Holdridge, a friend and confidant of Heiple's, could be damaged by that association if it becomes an issue in the race, political insiders say.
Holdridge dismisses any suggestion that he is Heiple's protˇgˇ. "The fact that I have a personal friendship with anyone certainly doesn't bespeak of how I do my job," he says. Heiple did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Hawkinson, meanwhile, is the only candidate in any of the races to have alluded to the high court's "public reputation," referring to media and other public criticism that followed the single-subject rulings and the Heiple controversy. "The court, as well as the legal profession, has taken a beating in the last few years," Hawkinson says. "I think my experience, background and reputation can help to rebuild that reputation and enhance it with the public."
When all is said and done, the candidates say, they hope voters will consider their experience. In Cook County, Zwick stresses his nine years on the bench, both as a trial judge and an appellate justice. He's also been a public defender, a stockbroker and real estate developer. Fitzgerald is the Cook County Democratic Party's pick for Bilandic's seat. A former prosecutor and a jurist since 1976, Fitzgerald now heads that county's criminal courts division and chairs a special Supreme Court committee that is studying the death penalty. Cousins stresses his 23 years' experience on the bench and his nearly 10 years as alderman of Chicago's 8th Ward. He's running as an independent Democrat. Curran contends her 17 years in private practice give her a breadth of experience greater than that of her opponents.
In the 2nd District race, Rathje is the only jurist to have served at all three levels of the court system: circuit, appellate and supreme. He practiced law for 28 years and, in this race, is backed by the GOP establishment. Thomas, a former Chicago Bears placekicker, has wide name recognition and broad-based conservative support. He's been on the bench since 1988, four years longer than Rathje. Wheaton is the only candidate in this race to have presided over criminal trials. "I know what it is like to look a defendant in the eye and say, 'You are going to jail,'" she says. Wheaton's late husband was a fifth-generation Wheaton, the family the DuPage County town was named after. Drury, the Chicago attorney, stresses his 30 years practicing law. "I don't think any of the other opponents have that," he says.
In the 3rd District race, Hawkinson, a former prosecutor, is standing on his years as a lawmaker and as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Holdridge has been on the 3rd District Appellate Court since 1994 and was a trial judge in the Macomb-based 9th Judicial Circuit before that. He served briefly as director of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts when Heiple was chief justice. Kilbride, who, like Curran and Drury, has never been a judge, plays up his 18 years as an attorney. "I've seen the impact that decisions have locally and I think that something that's needed on the bench are judges who have actually had hands-on experience representing real people," he says.
With no hotly contested statewide or U.S. Senate races on the ballot this month, the high court races may be the ones to watch. A trip to the ballot box, at least, won't seem like such a big yawner.
Aaron Chambers and John Flynn Rooney write for the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. Chambers covers the Statehouse. Rooney covers Cook County courts.
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