From the Chicago Tribune
One of the many downsides of an elected judiciary is that voters typically have little information about the candidates whose names appear on the ballot.
That’s because judges are supposed to be impartial — and apolitical. They’re supposed to make decisions based on the law, not to appease voters or campaign donors. So you don’t see judges stumping as pro-choice, for example, or brandishing their business-friendly credentials. Their campaigns stress experience, competence, integrity, fairness.
It’s a different story now in Southern Illinois, where voters are being bombarded by information — bad information — about state Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier, who’s seeking retention from the 5th Judicial District.
A committee calling itself Campaign for 2016 has spent $1.7 million on a furious last-minute effort to deny Karmeier a second 10-year term. The campaign, bankrolled by plaintiffs lawyers seeking big paydays from class-action lawsuits, has sponsored mailers and television ads accusing Karmeier of “letting corporations buy justice.”
Here’s what that’s about: In 2004, Republican Karmeier and Democrat Gordon Maag spent a record $9.3 million fighting for the open Supreme Court seat. Karmeier’s campaign was funded largely by business and tort reform groups; Maag got most of his money from trial lawyers.
After he won, Karmeier voted with the majority in decisions that overturned a $10.1 billion judgment against cigarette-maker Philip Morris and a $1 billion judgment against State Farm.
Lawyers working on the Philip Morris case have given $1.7 million to Campaign for 2016. And guess what? Their case is headed back to the Supreme Court. Clifford Law Offices of Chicago, representing plaintiffs in the State Farm case, which is now in federal court, has given $200,000.
Who’s trying to buy justice here? The plaintiffs’ lawyers, that’s who. They don’t like the way Karmeier and his colleagues interpreted the law in those cases. They want to buy themselves a Supreme Court that sees things their way.
The Washington-based Republican State Leadership Committee, which works to elect Republicans in down-ballot state races, has spent nearly $1 million to counter the attacks on Karmeier.
Illinois isn’t the only state where big money is being spent to shape the judiciary. In the final weeks before the election, independent groups have spent millions on Supreme Court elections in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Montana, according to analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice and the nonpartisan Justice at Stake.
We urge voters in Southern Illinois to reject the trial lawyers’ self-serving pitch and vote “yes” to retain Karmeier.
The 2004 election that sent Karmeier to the Supreme Court was widely seen as a referendum on “jackpot justice.” The 5th Judicial District, and Madison County in particular, is a magnet for personal injury and product liability cases because the courts are notoriously plaintiff-friendly.
Madison County has earned a perennial spot on the American Tort Reform Association’s list of “judicial hellholes.” Neighboring St. Clair County makes frequent appearances on the list, as does Cook County.
The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform says Madison County is the sixth worst litigation venue in America — and Cook County is worst of all.
That’s bad for the state’s business climate — who wants to locate in a lawsuit-happy jurisdiction? — but good for the trial lawyers, which is why they’re fighting so hard to stay on that hellhole list.
The millions they’re spending to smear Karmeier are also meant as a shot — make that a missile — across the bow of other judicial candidates. It puts judges on notice that adverse rulings will subject them to a retaliatory attack at election time. It forces them to build campaign chests to defend themselves, something good judges find profoundly discomfiting.
“Justice is not for sale,” says the Campaign for 2016 television ad. And somewhere, a plaintiffs’ attorney is reaching for the checkbook.