From the St. Louis Post Dispatch

Justice looks at changing how judges are chosen
By KEVIN McDERMOTT
Post-Dispatch Springfield Bureau
3/24/05SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - In the wake of last year's bitter and expensive
Illinois Supreme Court race in Southern Illinois, the court's chief justice
quietly convened a meeting of the state's top legal minds Tuesday to lay
groundwork for what could be a major overhaul of the way Illinois selects
its judges.
A court official and others confirmed Wednesday that Chief Justice Mary Ann
G. McMorrow convened the unusual meeting in the Supreme Court's
headquarters in Springfield with about 20 leaders of the state's bar
organizations and political reformers, as well as six of the seven
justices.
The purpose, sources said, was to begin a process that could eventually
make recommendations to the Legislature for changes in the election system
as it relates to judges - who, like all Illinois politicians, are elected
under a campaign finance system that allows unlimited political donations
from any source.
While no specific recommendations were endorsed at Tuesday's meeting,
proposals from other players include public financing of judicial
elections; dollar limits on donations; barring contributions from parties
involved in litigation before the judges in question; and even a system in
which judges are appointed instead of elected.
Last year's $9 million election slugfest between Judges Gordon Maag of Glen
Carbon and Lloyd Karmeier of Nashville for a Supreme Court seat wasn't
specifically cited as the reason for Tuesday's meeting. But issues that
arose from that election - which Karmeier won - clearly were on the agenda.
"The issues that might be explored include the amount of money spent in
judicial campaigns, (and) the tone and conduct of judicial campaigns," said
court spokesman Joe Tybor. ". . . It was a recognition that perhaps
something has to be done."
A coalition of reform groups had its own suggestion Wednesday on the issue:
public financing of judicial campaigns. That, they say, would avoid
situations like one now facing the court, which is being asked to remove
Karmeier from a case because one of the parties involved contributed to his
campaign.
While those at the meeting Tuesday didn't endorse public financing or any
other specific proposal, one campaign reform advocate said the mere fact
that the court was talking about judicial campaign issues was "tremendously
encouraging."
"I think the court . . . is very concerned about public perception about
the independence of the judiciary," said Cindi Canary, director of the
Illinois Campaign For Political Reform and one of the organizers of
Tuesday's meeting. "The court's involvement brings a whole new level of
gravity to the discussion."
The only Supreme Court member who wasn't at Tuesday's meeting was Justice
Rita B. Garman. Karmeier attended, said Tybor, along with leaders of
statewide and Chicago bar organizations, lower-level judges and others.
Much of the discussion centered on "what's happening in judicial elections
in terms of expense and nastiness . . . (and) how to restore confidence in
the integrity and fairness of the judiciary," said participant Dawn Clark
Netsch, a former state senator, former candidate for governor and now a
lawyer in Chicago.
The judiciary "is almost totally dependent on credibility," Netsch said.
She said that credibility had been hurt by "the fact that judicial
campaigns are beginning to look as nasty as other political campaigns."
Any changes to campaign law would require legislative action. Among the
framework for discussions in the next few months, sources said, would be
invitations to legislative leaders and the governor's office to
participate.
At a news conference Wednesday in Springfield, unrelated to the Supreme
Court's meeting, a coalition of reform groups laid out a legislative agenda
that includes public financing of judicial campaigns. Some predicted that
the idea may have a better chance than ever in the Legislature this spring
because of lingering bitterness over the Maag-Karmeier race, the most
expensive judicial contest in U.S. history.
The enormous outlay from two competing lobbies in that election is still
casting a shadow over the operation of the high court itself. In a brief
filed late Tuesday, plaintiffs in a pending Supreme Court case against
State Farm Insurance pressed their argument that Karmeier should recuse
himself because State Farm or its supporters contributed heavily to his
campaign last year.
"This . . . is very corrosive to the legitimacy of the political system,"
said political scientist Kent Redfield, part of the coalition of groups
that laid out its agenda Wednesday. Redfield called unrestricted political
donations "an explosive problem" for the judiciary.
Among other proposals from the coalition Wednesday were campaign
contribution limits of $1,500 per donor to each legislative candidate in
each election; $3,000 to each statewide candidate; and an outright ban on
corporate or union donations. Illinois is one of the few states in the
nation that currently has no dollar limits of any kind on campaign
donations.