From the Daily Law Bulletin

February 13, 2008

Experts fault judicial campaign advertising
By John Flynn Rooney
and Brian Mackey
Law Bulletin staff writers
Judicial campaign ads in two instances in the 2008 primary elections
played too freely with facts and words, according to advertising
experts.
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne M. Burke, running unopposed in
the Feb. 5 Democratic primary for the seat she holds by interim
appointment, teamed up with 11 candidates for the Cook County Circuit
Court and 1st District Appellate Court and ran a joint campaign backed
by the Cook County Democratic Party.
Newspaper ads presented a group photograph of the 12 candidates, 10
of whom wore judicial robes.
''On Tuesday, February 5,'' the newspaper ads read, ''vote for these
Democratic judges.''
But what the ads did not say is that two of the candidates, Thomas J.
Byrne and Paula M. Lingo, are not currently judges. Among the other
nine candidates for the Circuit and Appellate courts, some were
previously elected and others hold their seats by temporary
appointment.
In the three-way Democratic primary for Burke's vacancy on the
appeals court, 1st District Appellate Justice Alan J. Greiman fielded
a campaign poster and a television commercial urging voters to
''re-elect'' him.
Greiman is an elected Circuit Court judge and has been sitting on the
appeals court by assignment.
Under the electoral process in Illinois, Greiman cannot be
''re-elected'' to the Circuit Court, but rather would have to run for
retention. He chose instead to stand for election to the Appellate
Court, and was defeated in the primary.
''That is pretty irresponsible advertising,'' said Jan S. Slater, a
professor and head of the advertising department at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before taking up teaching, Slater ran
her own advertising firm for 20 years.
Greiman said he relied on a woman whom he did not identify to handle
advertising for his campaign.
''I should have checked [the ads] more closely,'' Greiman said in a
telephone interview.
The choice of wording in the newspaper ads backing Burke and the
Circuit Court candidates also was said to have been made not by the
candidates or their campaigns, but by paid consultants.
When asked why the ''vote for these Democratic judges'' language was
employed when not all of the candidates are judges, Burke's campaign
chair, Jenner & Block LLC partner John B. Simon, referred questions to
John Kupper, a partner with Chicago-based AKP&D Message & Media, which
developed the ads.
''It was an oversight,'' said Kupper, whose partners include David
Axelrod, a well-known political consultant. ''There was no attempt to
mislead anybody.''
Kupper noted that Burke's campaign sent out a letter to voters that
employed the same photo as the newspaper ads, but correctly referred
to ''these … judicial candidates.''
''I think it [the letter] documents that there was no effort to
mislead people here,'' Kupper said.
But both Slater and an advertising professional expressed skepticism
that misuse of terminology in campaign materials would be inadvertent.
''That angle provides good cover for these people to employ these
weasel words and to cut corners for their own benefit,'' said Barry E.
Burdiak, senior vice president and group creative director at DDB
Chicago, a major national advertising firm.
Slater, the professor, said the campaign messages were ''presenting
what we would call half-truths. They're trying to weasel the words to
imply what they want.''
Nor would Slater let the paid consultants bear the full responsibility.
''In the real world of advertising, many eyes would have seen this
before it ran,'' Slater said. ''The ultimate sign-off comes from the
client.''
Other candidates in the primary also had to make choices about how to
pitch to voters.
James M. Wexstten, the winner of last week's Democratic primary for a
vacancy on the 5th District Appellate Court, is an appellate justice
by assignment, like Greiman.
Wexstten said he made a conscious decision to print signs urging
voters to ''keep'' him on the court, rather than to ''re-elect'' him.
''I did some thoughtful consideration on that — I was not elected to
this position, but I was appointed to it until Dec. 1, 2008,''
Wexstten said. ''I was suggesting to the voters that if they wanted to
'keep' a qualified judge that the Supreme Court had appointed, that
would be me.''
Kent Redfield, a professor of political studies at the University of
Illinois at Springfield, said misusing the term ''re-elect'' creates
an unfair advantage.
''Voters are looking for voting cues — if it's a low-information
race, and I'm looking for a basis to make a decision, then if someone
has already been elected judge once, then that looks [appealing],''
Redfield said.
More than that, Redfield added, it's ''intentionally confusing'' voters.
''In one sense, it's kind of an insult to the voters because it's
assuming that they're ignorant of the process and therefor fall for
that ruse,'' Redfield said.
Don Rose, a veteran Chicago political consultant, said that generally
voters will not turn an incumbent out of office.
''There is always a desire to let the voter know that this is an
incumbent, that this guy is a sitting judge,'' Rose said.
Burke's campaign said it expected to spend about $275,000 on behalf
of the Democrat-slated judicial candidates, including for the
newspaper ads and mailers sent to voters.
In the photo, along with Burke, Lingo and Byrne, are two elected
circuit judges — Greiman and John O. Steele — and appointed Circuit
Judges Loretta Higgins Wolfson, Thaddeus L. Wilson, Joan E. Powell,
Michael B. Hyman, Maureen Ward Kirby and Marilyn F. Johnson, and
Associate Judge Jesse G. Reyes.
Steele won in the three-way race for the Calvin Campbell vacancy on
the 1st District Appellate Court.
Wolfson was defeated by a lone opponent for the Barbara J. Disko
vacancy on the Circuit Court, and Wilson lost in the race for the
Anthony S. Montelione vacancy.
Chicago lawyer Kristyna Colleen Ryan holds a nearly 1,500-vote lead
over Lingo in the three-person race to fill the Michael J. Murphy
vacancy on the Circuit Court.
Reyes, Kirby, Johnson, Byrne, Hyman and Powell all won in their
respective races.