| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 29, 2005 |
Contact: Cynthia Canary |
About 85 percent of voters believe the decisions of Illinois judges are influenced
by campaign contributors, political party leaders, and special interest groups,
according to a recent public opinion poll.
Despite this sentiment and a belief that judicial election campaigns have become too expensive, the poll showed Illinois voters continue to support an elected, rather than appointed, judicial system.
The poll demonstrated strong support for limits on how much money can be contributed to judicial election campaigns, and slightly more than one-half of those polled said they would support the public financing of judicial campaigns.
The poll was commissioned by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR) and the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. The poll was conducted by the Survey Research Office of the Center for State Policy and Research at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
“Campaign spending in the 2004 election for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court set a national record and once again made Illinois a national embarrassment,” said Cynthia Canary, Director of ICPR. “More than $9 million was spent in the 5th District, and most of it came from business and trial lawyers with a potential financial stake in cases before the state’s highest court. As a result, the people of Illinois are questioning the fairness of the state’s judicial system.”
“If government expects citizens to respect and follow the laws of the land, the people of Illinois must be able to trust the men and women in charge of the state’s judicial system,” said Mike Lawrence, Director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. “When only half of those polled think ‘fair and impartial’ is a good way to describe our judges and only 55 percent were willing to describe judges as ‘honest and trustworthy,’ we have a problem. Before more damage is done, the judiciary and members of the General Assembly should act to correct it.”
“Judicial candidates scrambling for money from special interest groups and campaigning for votes like candidates for the General Assembly is not the way to build public confidence in the judiciary,” Canary said. “If we’re not going to switch to a merit selection system, we should reform the current election system and limit the influence of large campaign contributors to judicial candidates.
For more details about the poll results and a summary of the questions and
answers, visit www.ilcampaign.org.
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