This summer, the man who was once one of the most powerful politicians in Illinois will learn his fate, when former Chicago 14th Ward Ald. Ed Burke is sentenced by a Chicago federal judge.
Burke, 79, could face up to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of 13 counts accusing him of shaking down Chicago businesses and others, leveraging his powerful position as chairman of the city's Finance Committee to steer business to his property tax appeal law firm, among other charges.
But even if the judge ultimately puts Burke behind bars, his influence on Chicago, Cook County and the rest of Illinois, if not the nation, will likely linger for decades more, thanks to his equally powerful role as the longtime gatekeeper for the Cook County courts, guiding the selection of the judges and packing one of America's largest and most influential local court systems with loyalists, allies and others who sought to curry his favor.
Cook County Judge Regina Scannicchio
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Since the 1980s, Burke served as chairman of the powerful Cook County Democratic Party committee tasked with choosing which judicial candidates to endorse each election. In that role, Burke and his allies on the party committee wielded massive influence in heavily Democratic Cook County over the election and appointment of judges.
Indeed, candidates for circuit judgeships in Cook County who received the official party endorsement - enjoying all of the associated fundraising and campaign support from armies of party workers - would rarely lose. By some estimates, judicial candidates who bucked the local Democratic Party, and challenged those anointed by Burke and his allies, won less than 6% of the time.
And for decades, the key to securing that backing has remained the same:
Demonstrating loyalty and support for the local Democratic Party - and particularly to Burke and other prominent Chicago Democrats, including the now-indicted former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and Cook County Board President and Cook County Democratic Party Chair Toni Preckwinkle, among others.
Recent reports published by Injustice Watch and others indicated that candidates seeking the blessing of the Cook County Party and its judicial slating committee still regularly tout their loyalty to the party and pledge to each raise $45,000 during "pre-slating" events before powerful party officials, in return for endorsement.
Since 2019, when Burke came under federal criminal indictment, the judicial slating committee is now headed by Illinois State Sen. President Don Harmon, of Oak Park.
Campaign finance records reveal a large degree of past seeming generosity among the county's judges for Democratic and left-wing organizations, which also, in turn, support Democratic candidates.
Records reveal that prospective candidates would regularly donate to campaign organizations controlled by Burke, Preckwinkle, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, former Chicago Ald. Roderick Sawyer, former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios, Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough, and other high profile Chicago and Illinois Democrats.
Sawyer still serves on the Cook County Democratic Party's judicial slating committee, along with Chicago Ald. Leslie Hairston, a frequent recipient of campaign donations from a number of those who would later go on to become Cook County judges.
But losing an election also doesn't necessarily mean favored candidates are kept off the court. Each year, dozens of associate judges are appointed to Cook County's bench as associate judges, either by selection by the Illinois Supreme Court, which is dominated by a Democratic supermajority, or by vote of Cook County's almost entirely Democratic elected circuit court judges.
As recently as 2011, the Chicago Tribune reported the surest way to land an appointment to the bench in Cook County was to be recommended to Burke by Madigan. And the Tribune noted that one of the surest ways to receive a nod from Madigan was to donate to the campaign of his daughter, former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
Once on the court, those appointed judges wield many of the same powers as elected circuit judges, and can then parlay their judicial experience into incumbent-like runs for election.
In 2012, for instance, current Cook County Circuit Judge Michael Forti lost his first bid for judicial office, despite receiving the endorsement of the Cook County Democratic Party, under Burke's control at the time. He lost to former Cook County Judge Jessia Arong O'Brien in that race. O'Brien was removed from the bench in 2018 after she was convicted of mortgage fraud.
Prior to running for judge, Forti had served for 13 years as deputy corporation counsel for the city of Chicago.
From 2012-2018, campaign finance records show Forti, who had gone on to work as chief counsel for the Illinois Department of Transportation, donated thousands to campaign funds run by Burke and other powerful Chicago Democrats.
In 2016, Forti was appointed to the bench, and was recognized for being one of the county's "newest openly gay judges." In 2020, Forti ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and was elected to a judgeship in Cook County's Eighth Judicial Subcircuit. He now serves on the county's Domestic Relations Division, which handles family law and divorce cases. His term is scheduled to end in 2026, when he can run for retention and another term on the bench.
Once judges secure a place on the Cook County courts, they can then be positioned for still higher office, as Cook County judges also regularly move up to fill seats on the First District Appellate Court, which geographically includes only Cook County, and the Illinois Supreme Court, which, under the state constitution, reserves three of its seven seats for candidates elected from Cook County.
Using that system, Burke's wife, Ann Burke, was appointed to the First District Appellate Court in 1995, despite having no trial experience. After running unopposed for that seat in the next election, Ann Burke was next appointed to the Illinois Supreme Court, when she was appointed to the court to fill the spot left open by the retirement of Justice Mary Ann McMorrow in 2006.
Ann Burke retired from the state high court in 2023. At Ann Burke's recommendation, the state Supreme Court appointed Justice Joy V. Cunningham to replace her. Cunningham has received the endorsement of the Cook County Democratic Party in the contest for a full 10-year-term on the state high court this year.
On the Cook County court, Burke's control of the judicial selection process in Cook County could be most evidently seen in the 14th Judicial Subcircuit, which includes his home 14th Ward.
Judges in the 14th Subcircuit notably include judges Matthew Link, who served for years as legal counsel for the city's Finance Committee, under Burke; Regina Ann Scannicchio, who now heads the county courts' divorce and family law courts; Edward Arce; and Maura Slattery-Boyle, who as recently as 2018 was reported to be the Cook County judge whose decisions were most frequently overturned on appeal.
Campaign finance records reveal these judges or their families have supported or received support from political organizations run by Burke or the influential Bridgeport family of former mayors Richard J. and Richard M. Daley.
While the subcircuit was created in the early 1990s, every judge serving in the 14th Subcircuit was either appointed or ran unopposed until 2018, when current Judge Beatriz Frausto-Sandoval defeated Burke's pick, Marina Ammendola, in the subcircuit's first contested Democratic primary election.
The influence of the judges of the 14th Subcircuit is particularly felt in Cook County's Domestic Relations Division. Four of the subcircuit's nine current judges were selected to preside over cases in that division. These include Scannicchio, who was selected as Acting Presiding Judge over the division in September 2022; Judge Iris Chavira; Edward Arce; and Link.
Link was recently selected to be one of two judges overseeing so-called "complex litigation" cases in divorce court. Such cases typically involve divorces of wealthier or prominent couples.
Scannicchio created the complex litigation assignments last year, and assigns cases to those complex litigation calendars.
The other Domestic Relations Division judge selected to hear such "complex" cases is Judge James A. Shapiro, from the county's 8th Subcircuit.
Shapiro also made news in 2021 when he denied a mother joint custody of her son because she refused to receive a Covid vaccine.
Forti also serves in the county's Domestic Relations Division.
Cook County's divorce courts are not new to controversy and scandal.
In 2021, deceased attorney Edwin "Ted" Bush III famously came under disciplinary proceedings from the Illinois Attorney Disciplinary and Registration Commission amid his encounter with Cook County's divorce courts, accusing judges and guardians ad litem of misconduct over their handling of the dispute between him and his ex-wife over custody of their three children.
Bush notably compared the conduct of the judges, lawyers and GALs involved in divorce proceedings to "child trafficking."
“Domestic relations courts and their surrounding cottage industries are predatory and resemble organized crime—seizing children from fit parents and then selling them back with unnecessary and unwanted ‘services,'" Bush wrote.
"That is none other than child trafficking.”
Bush would go on to launch a public relations crusade to draw attention to the perceived problems within the Cook County Domestic Relations Division, until he died of cancer in September 2022.
In 2013, the Chicago Tribune revealed judges on the Cook County divorce courts were routinely allowing prominent and wealthy couples to essentially hide their divorce proceedings from public view, by allowing them to file their cases under initials only, or allowing them to improperly seal their divorce cases entirely.
Most recently, Cook County divorce judges have come under scrutiny for jailing men in alleged "debtors' prison" under findings of indirect civil contempt of court, for failing to pay often millions of dollars of "domestic support obligations," which the judges ruled may include attorney fees racked up by the other spouse.
In some instances, the incarcerations in Cook County Jail have come despite repeated assertions by the men that they do not have the money the courts believe they have, and despite pleas from the men that the jailing jeopardizes their ability to earn money to pay the support the court has ordered them to pay.
Voters will have the opportunity this November to decide if Scannicchio, Slattery-Boyle and Shapiro should remain on the bench. All are on the ballot for retention this November, along with potentially 72 other current Cook County judges whose terms end in 2024.
To be retained on the bench, judges must win at least 60 percent of the vote.
Cook County voters will also be asked to elect new circuit judges.
For this election cycle, the Cook County Democratic Party officially slated 10 judicial candidates, including Neil Cohen, Arlene Y. Coleman-Romeo, Debjani 'Deb' Desai, Deidre M. Dyer, Corinne C. Heggie, Sarah Johnson, James S. Murphy-Aguilu, Chloe Georgianna Pedersen, Edward Joseph Underhill and Jennifer Patricia Callahan.
They also slated 10 "circuit court alternates," including: Pablo DeCastro, Yolanda Sayre, Steve McKenzie, Andrea Belard, Loveleen Ahuja, Ava George Stewart, Kevin Ochalla, Antara Nath Rivera, Risa Lanier and Laura Lopez.