On an Election Day in which voters throughout Chicago and its suburbs handed big wins to Democrats, Cook County’s slate of Democrat-dominated judges cruised to easy wins in their bids to keep their seats on the bench.
No Cook County judge came close to being rejected by voters. That included Cook County’s Chief Judge Timothy Evans, who was the target of a late campaign by people upset with the current condition of the county’s criminal justice system and rising crime rates, who sought to persuade people to vote against Evans to send a message of sorts, if not remove Evans outright.
Voters in Cook County and Chicago, however, handed Evans nearly 70% of the vote, according to unofficial tallies posted on Nov. 8 by the Cook County Clerk and the Chicago Board of Elections.
Under the Illinois state constitution, judges who have already been elected to the bench don’t face another partisan election against an opponent. Rather, at the end of their terms every six years, judges must face voters in what is known as a retention vote. Voters are asked to vote yes to retain them in their post, or no, to remove them.
Judges must secure a yes vote from 60% of voters in their respective ballot question. Judges who fall short of the required 60% approval are then removed from the bench, and their seats are opened up to a partisan contest at the next regularly scheduled election.
In this election, voters overwhelmingly chose to send Cook County’s judges back to the bench. All judges standing for retention were Democrats.
Further, Cook County’s only contested partisan race also went to Democrats, as voters in northwest suburban Cook County selected Cook County Assistant Public Defender Joe Gump for the judgeship in the county’s 13th Judicial Subcircuit. According to unofficial vote totals, Gump secured 55% of the vote, defeating Republican Gary William Seyring, an attorney and certified public accountant from Schaumburg.
In retention balloting, 13 judges, including Evans, received less than 70% of the vote. However, of those, only two judges, Ann Finley Collins and Rossana Fernandez, received less than 63% of the vote.
Voters selected all judges for retention, despite concerns raised by judicial rating agencies and others concerning several of the judges.
Evans was particularly targeted for removal by some current and former Chicago city aldermen, among other critics who placed a large share of the blame for Chicago’s spike in murders and other violent crime in the past two years on the chief judge’s enthusiastic support for criminal justice reform, including the elimination of cash bail and other pre-trial detention changes. Critics said the changes have allowed and will continue to allow violent criminals to roam free, with the ability to commit more crime, as they await trial on charges for murder and other violent crimes.
Despite those concerns, voters still swept Evans and his Democratic judicial colleagues to easy wins, largely mirroring strong support for Democrats at all levels in Chicago and the suburbs on Nov. 8.
Gov. JB Pritzker, Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Secretary of State nominee Alexi Giannoulias, Comptroller Susana Mendoza and Treasurer Michael Frerichs all secured at least 64% of the vote in suburban Cook County, with even greater wins in the city of Chicago itself, according to unofficial vote tallies.
Cook County judges receiving less than 70% of the vote in their retention races included: Timothy Evans; Charles Patrick Burns; William H. Hooks; Geary W. Krull; Ann Finley Collins; Rosanna Fernandez; Leonard Murray; Jim Ryan; Thaddeus Wilson; Steven Bernstein; Daniel P. Duffy; James Allegretti; and Steven Kozicki.