At the general election next November 2, Morgan County voters will
choose the County's next resident circuit judge to succeed the retired
Judge J. David Bone. On September 2, 2002, Jacksonville attorney Richard
Mitchell was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to fill the vacancy.
Now Judge Mitchell is seeking a full six-year term as Morgan County's
resident circuit judge on the Republican ticket. Attorney Larry Kuster
has filed to oppose him as an independent.
To be placed on the ballot, the law requires the established party candidate,
Mr. Mitchell, to obtain signatures "in his district, circuit, or
subcircuit" amounting to "0.25% (.0025) of the number of votes
cast for the judicial candidate of his/her party who received the highest
number of votes at the last General Election at which a judicial officer
… was regularly scheduled to be elected, but in no event …less
than 500 signatures." The number of signatures independent candidate
Kuster has to collect must equal at least 5 percent "of the total
number of persons who voted at the last General Election within the
district or judicial unit, except where 5% is greater than 25,000, the
minimum number of signatures required is 25,000."
Both candidates came up with the required number of signatures in Morgan
County. So it appeared that the voters would have a choice between Mr.
Mitchell and Mr. Kuster. That possibility, however, does not seem to
suit Mr. Zachary, who succeeded Mr. Mitchell as chairman of the Morgan
County Republican Party.
In Mr. Zachary's opinion, an independent candidate for resident circuit
clerk needs to produce the signatures of 5 percent of the total number
of persons who voted at the last General Election within the whole Seventh
Judicial Circuit. That includes, in addition to Morgan, the counties
of Greene, Jersey, Macoupin, Sangamon, and Scott. They comprise a total
of 317,285 residents, as compared to 36,173 in Morgan County, according
to July 1, 2002, data. If the independent candidate had to collect 5
percent of the signatures for the whole 7th Circuit, he would have to
come up with roughly nine times more signatures than he has now, or
drop out of the race.
Mr. Zachary ignores two crucial facts. (1) The Judicial Vacancies Act
(40/2.1) states: "when a vacancy in the office of a resident circuit
judge is filled by election, the election shall be for the appropriate
county or unit, and not for the entire circuit." (2) Messrs. Mitchell
and Kuster are vying to fill the vacancy for the resident circuit judgeship
of Morgan County, not for the at-large judgeship of the six-county 7th
circuit that was previously held by Judge Thomas Carmody.
The State Board of Elections will now have to clarify if the law means
what it says: namely, that Mr. Kuster's independent candidacy for the
Morgan County resident judgeship requires a 5 percent signature support
from Morgan County, but not from the entire 7th Circuit.
This tempest in a teapot demonstrates again that political partisanship
distracts from the main purpose of the judge selection process. Since
judges are to preside impartially over court proceedings, they should
not be labeled or promoted as Democrats, Republicans, independents,
or any other kind of partisan.
Illinois statutes require non-partisan candidates for municipal office
in commission or council-manager forms of government. Yet, they cling
to the discredited partisan elections for the judiciary in the tradition
of the Jacksonian spoils system.
There are four ways in which judges are selected in the fifty states:
by the governor aided or unaided by a commission or by either partisan
or nonpartisan election. Presently, 13 states select most or all of
their judges in non-partisan elections.
While judges cannot escape the political environment in which they live,
their office nevertheless requires that their conduct, including their
electioneering, is conspicuously nonpartisan. Partisan political activists
hinder rather than help the promotion of an independent judiciary.