A Lake County judge who openly boasts of her progressive political stances and ties to prominent Illinois Democrats, will advance to the November general election in what is expected to be a hotly contested race to determine the balance of power on the Illinois Supreme Court.
Who the Republican candidate will be in the state’s Second Judicial District, however, remained unclear on the morning after the primary Election Day, as a former Lake County sheriff continued to hold a narrow edge over a Lake County judge.
As of Wednesday morning, June 29, former Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran held the lead in the contest in the Supreme Court district that spans Lake, McHenry, Kane, Kendall and DeKalb counties, mostly in Chicago’s suburbs.
Curran held 31,324 votes, or about 29.6% of the votes cast, as he sought to hold off Lake County Judge Daniel Shanes, who had 29,796 votes, or 28.1% of the total, according to unofficial election results posted by the five county clerks for the primary election.
The close Republican contest also included Kane County Judge John Noverini, who held 21.7% of the total, and Illinois Second District Appellate Justice Susan Hutchinson, who collected 20.5% of the unofficial total.
Curran has never held judicial office.
Should his vote total hold up, Curran would be the Republican nominee to face presumptive Democratic nominee Lake County Judge Elizabeth Rochford.
Rochford easily topped her opponents, Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering and Kane County Judge Rene Cruz. Rochford collected more than 44% of Democratic votes cast in the five counties, compared to about 28% for Rotering and 27% for Cruz.
The race for the Second District seat is expected to be intense this summer and fall, as Democrats seek to block Republicans from flipping the majority on the court and potentially cutting into the Democratic stranglehold on Illinois politics and constitutional law.
Democrats said the boundary changes were needed to better balance the population among the five Supreme Court districts, after decades of population shifts within the state.
Outside of the state capitol, however, observers noted the changes came only after Illinois Republicans succeeded in ousting former Supreme Court Justice Thomas Kilbride in 2020, who had served for decades from the state’s former Third Judicial District in north central Illinois. Kilbride was regarded by critics as an ally of now-indicted former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Under the old district lines, an election for an open Supreme Court seat in the Third District may have been an easy Republican win, given the former district’s growing Republican voter rolls.
A shift in favor of the Republicans on the court could produce big changes in how state laws and the state constitution are interpreted.
The Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court in recent years, for instance, has shot down attempts to reform the state’s pension system, and denied voters the chance to vote on a new constitutional amendment stripping power from state lawmakers to gerrymander the state’s legislative districts to their partisan advantage.
The state Supreme Court also issued directives and orders that have helped Gov. JB Pritzker thwart court challenges to the broad, sweeping emergency powers he has wielded for over a year in the name of slowing the spread of COVID-19, even as other states declared their governors acted illegally to continue issuing emergency orders over that same span without the approval of their state legislatures.
For decades, Illinois’ counties have been divided up into five Supreme Court districts. From those districts, Illinois voters elect seven state Supreme Court justices.
Three of those justices are elected from overwhelmingly Democratic Cook County, which is counted as the state’s First Judicial District.
In the new district map, Democrats carved up the state’s counties in a new way, rebalancing the districts to produce a more even political split in both a new Third District and a new Second District, based on voter party ID.
Under the old maps, the Second District had included most of Chicago’s suburban counties, as well as the rest of northern Illinois.
Under the new map, DuPage County, which has historically been a Republican stronghold, but has trended more Democratic in recent years, was added to the new Third District, along with Will, Kankakee, Grundy, Iroquois, LaSalle and Bureau counties.
This fall, voters in the new Third District will choose between incumbent Republican Supreme Court Justice Michael J. Burke, of DuPage County, and Grundy County Democrat Mary K. O’Brien, a justice on the Illinois Third District Appellate Court and former Illinois state representative.
In the race for the new Second District seat, Rochford has trumpeted her left-leaning politics, particularly on the issue of abortion. Her campaign website asserts she will make it a priority to “combat racial injustice” in the state’s courts.
She also touts her endorsements from powerful Illinois Democrats, including outgoing Secretary of State Jesse White, State Senate Democratic Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford and former State Senate President John Cullerton, and many of the state’s labor unions, including the powerful teachers’ unions.
Rochford has served as judge on the Lake County Circuit Court for nine years. Previously, she served as a commissioner on the Illinois Court of Claims for 23 years, and as an assistant state's attorney in Cook County.
Curran touts himself as “a proven fighter for faith, family and freedom,” who “has fought against corruption and never backs down.”
While never having served as a judge, Curran says his experience as a senior prosecutor, county sheriff and a professor of constitutional law at Columbia College of Missouri qualify him to serve on the state’s highest court.
Curran is a former Democrat, who switched parties in 2008, citing corruption within the Illinois Democratic Party. He served 12 years as Lake County Sheriff, and was reelected after switching parties.
Curran stood as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate against Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin in 2020.
On his campaign website, Curran notes he believes the Second District “is the absolute battleground for the leanings and therefore rulings of the (Supreme) Court moving forward.”