From the Belleville News Democrat

Posted on Tue, Dec. 21, 2004

$110,000,000: Gordon Maag sues groups behind campaign ads
BY BRIAN BRUEGGEMANN
bbrueggemann@bnd.com

EDWARDSVILLE - Gordon Maag wants the groups who tagged him as the poster boy for what's wrong with the court system to pay him for his election losses.
On Monday he sued for $110 million in Madison County -- which last week was again named the nation's No. 1 judicial hellhole. His attorney is Rex Carr, who counts himself among the top 100 personal injury lawyers in the nation.
Maag on Nov. 2 lost both the Illinois Supreme Court race and his race to be retained as a 5th District Appellate Court judge. His suit seeks $10 million in actual damages, such as lost wages and benefits, and $100 million to punish the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and its affiliate, the Illinois Coalition for Jobs, Growth and Prosperity, for a flier he claims cost him his seat on the appeals court.
Carr, of Belleville, said a big judgment is needed to deter the defendants and others from similar activity.
"What they did to Maag through absolute, 100 percent, easily proven lies can be done to any judge," Carr said. "Ten million is not going to stop them. You have to get their attention."
He added, "They're an association made up of a lot of big companies."
The flier criticizes Maag, a Democrat from Glen Carbon, as being soft on criminals and a reason employers have left the region.
For example, one paragraph states: "Judge Maag reduced a criminal's sentence for a brutal stabbing because he didn't think it was 'exceptionally brutal' and 'wantonly cruel' ... the victim was stabbed in the face, neck and chest with a butcher knife."
Another paragraph states: "Judge Maag overturned a first-degree murder conviction because the jury was not given the correct instructions for a lesser crime ... huh?"
Republican Lloyd Karmeier, who defeated Maag in the Supreme Court race, also complained during the campaign that advertising paid for by Maag's supporters twisted his judicial record. In fact, both candidates were asked by an Illinois State Bar Association committee, which was monitoring the campaign, to disavow certain advertisements, but neither did so.
Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said her group was concerned about campaign ads on both sides.
"It was an ugly election all around," Canary said. "Whether this particular piece was more egregious than the others, I can't say. But it was an ugly election all around."
She added, "I think, again, this shows you this is absolutely not the way to have a Supreme Court election."
Maag needed approval from 60 percent of the voters to retain his seat on the appeals court in Mount Vernon. He got approval from about 55 percent.
Carr said: "This defeat of Judge Maag, through these lies, absolute lies, is a warning shot to any other judge: 'Look, we did it to Maag, we can do it to you.'"
The suit was filed in Madison County. The county was a center of attention during the state Supreme Court race because of its reputation of being a good place to sue.
Neither Doug Whitley, president of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, nor Ronald Gidwitz, chairman of Illinois Coalition for Jobs, Growth and Prosperity, could be reached.