Anne Burke, who now serves as Illinois’ state Supreme Court chief justice, has announced she will retire from the court later this year after her term as chief justice expires.
Burke, who is married to the once powerful, and now indicted Chicago Alderman Ed Burke, served on the state Supreme Court for 16 years. She has served as chief justice since 2019, when she was selected by her colleagues on the court.
The court announced Burke will be replaced on the court by Appellate Justice Joy V. Cunningham, who has been appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court justices to replace Burke.
Illinois First DIstrict Appellate Justice Joy V. Cunningham
| Illinoiscourts.gov
Cunningham, a Chicago Democrat who serves on the Illinois First District Appellate Court, would remain on the court at least until 2024. At that time, Cunningham could choose to seek election to a 10-year term of her own.
Cunningham would become the second Black woman appointed this year to serve on the court, and the third Black justice serving on the court, along with justices P. Scott Neville and Lisa Holder White.
Holder White, a Republican, was appointed to the court following the retirement of former state Supreme Court Justice Rita Garman.
The court announced Burke's colleagues have selected Supreme Court Justice Mary Jane Theis as the court's next chief justice. Theis will serve as chief justice for three years.
Burke, 78, will retire, effective Dec. 1, 2022.
“The decision to retire was not an easy one,” Burke said in a letter announcing her retirement, distributed by the Illinois Supreme Court. “However, after having been blessed to serve as a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court for the past sixteen years, and as Chief Justice for the past three years, the race has been run and it is time to pass the gavel to a successor.”
In retiring before the end of her current term, Burke joins a long and growing line of Illinois Supreme Court justices who use Illinois’ unique court-led appointment process to effectively pick their own replacement.
Like a handful of states, Illinois holds partisan elections for initial 10-year terms on the state high court. Justices are selected from five districts: Three justices come from the state’s First Judicial District, which is limited solely to Cook County. Voters in each of the remaining four districts then select one justice each.
Additional terms on the court then require voter approval through an unopposed yes/no retention vote.
According to the Brennen Center for Justice, Illinois is the only state that has such a system.
Currently, six of the seven justices now serving on the court were at least initially appointed. That number will not change when Cunningham takes the court’s oath of office in December.
Justice David Overstreet, who was elected in 2020 from the Fifth District in southern Illinois, is the only current justice who was elected to the court without being first appointed to replace a retiring justice.
Illinois voters will also have the opportunity this fall to elect two justices to the state high court. In the Second District, former Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran, a Republican, is running against Lake County Judge Elizabeth Rochford.
In the Third District, current Supreme Court Justice Michael Burke, who is not related to Anne Burke, is running as a Republican against Illinois Third District Appellate Justice Mary K. O’Brien, a former Democratic state representative who was appointed to the state court directly from the state legislature.
Should Republicans win those two seats, they would be in the majority on the state Supreme Court for the first time since the current state constitution was ratified in 1970.
The election of at least one justice would mark a departure from a well-worn path to the state’s high court.
Typically, when a state Supreme Court justice retires, they recommend a replacement to their colleagues on the high court. To this point, the court has never refused to honor that recommendation, from justices of either party.
Such an appointment then allows the appointed justice to run with the benefits, prestige and power of an incumbent.
Burke herself followed that path to the court. She was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2006 to replace former Justice Mary Ann McMorrow. Burke then won election to a 10-year term in 2008. Voters chose to retain her for another 10-year term in 2018. However, she will retire after serving only four years of that new 10-year term.
Burke, a former physical education teacher at the Chicago Park District, rose to prominence in the 1960s, when she is credited for helping to lead the creation of the Special Olympics for developmentally challenged children in Chicago and beyond. Burke has remained involved in Special Olympics throughout her career, including as director of the International Special Olympics.
The first Special Olympics games were held in 1968 at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Also, that same year, Anne Burke married her husband, Ed Burke, who in 1969 would become alderman from Chicago’s 14th Ward and later become one of Illinois’ most powerful politicians, as chairman of the city’s Finance Committee.
The Burkes have five children and nine grandchildren.
Anne Burke came to the courts in 1987, when former Illinois Gov. James Thompson, a Republican, appointed her to the Illinois Court of Claims, four years after she graduated law school. She was the first woman to serve on that court, which hears lawsuits against the state.
Burke was reappointed to the Court of Claims in 1991 by former Gov. Jim Edgar, also a Republican.
Burke was then appointed to the First District Appellate Court in 1995, before she was elected to the appellate court in 1996. She remained on the appellate bench until she was appointed to the state Supreme Court 10 years later.
Burke’s retirement comes as her husband of 54 years prepares to stand trial in federal court on charges of public corruption.
The Burkes, along with Ed Burke’s brother, former State Rep. Daniel Burke, were recognized in 2005 by Crain’s Chicago Business as one of Chicago’s most powerful political families.
In 2019, as Anne Burke prepared to assume the role of chief justice, a report published by WBEZ in Chicago raised questions over the number of cases in which Anne Burke had participated at the Illinois Supreme Court involving clients of her husband’s law firm, Klafter & Burke, on property tax related matters.
Those clients included ComEd, the electrical utility that would later face federal indictment for allegedly bribing Illinois’ once most powerful Democrat, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. Madigan was also indicted in connection with the alleged ComEd bribes.
Rumors and allegations of corruption have swirled around Ed Burke for decades.
In the 1980s, Burke’s Finance Committee was the subject of federal investigation Operation Haunted Hall for ghost payrolling, in which politically connected people were paid for jobs to which they rarely or never reported for work.
Ed Burke was never indicted under that investigation.
Alderman Burke, however, was indicted in 2019 by federal prosecutors who alleged he used his office to steer business to his law firm. According to the indictments, Ed Burke and his associates in city government allegedly leaned on business owners seeking to develop property or open businesses in the city to pressure them to become clients of Klafter & Burke in exchange for approval from the city for business ventures.
His trial on those charges is scheduled to begin in November 2023.
Anne Burke has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with her husband’s alleged corruption.
Burke’s tenure on the state Supreme Court has been marked primarily by her work helping to guide Illinois’ court system through the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting societal shutdowns and restrictions imposed.
She has also served interim chair for two years for the National Review Board of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “investigating the causes and effects of the clerical sexual abuse scandal,” according to the release from the Illinois Supreme Court. In that role, she helped “establish guidelines and policies for effectively responding to” the scandal, the release said.
Cunningham will come to the Illinois Supreme Court with 16 years of experience on the state’s First District Appellate Court, and 20 years of judicial experience.
Cunningham was appointed as an associate judge to the Cook County Circuit Court in 1996.
From 2000-2006, Cunningham worked as general counsel and senior vice president at Northwestern Memorial Healthcare in Chicago.
In 2006, Cunningham was elected to the First District Appellate Court, and was retained by voters in 2016.
In accepting the appointment to the state Supreme Court, Cunningham said in a prepared statement that she would “do my best to serve with humility, integrity and compassion and always remember why I am there – to serve the people.”
She added: “We have distinguished Supreme Court in Illinois, and I am proud to have the opportunity to serve alongside these exceptional public servants. I am pleased to live in a state and a country in which my contributions are valued and my opportunities are limitless.”
The current justices of the Illinois Supreme Court, including Anne Burke and new justice Holder White, will begin its new term on Tuesday, Sept. 13. The court is expected to hear arguments in 23 cases.