This link will take you right into the 30 page (.pdf format) evaluation report. The first few pages of the report describes the CBA evaluation process in some detail. Voters may find it interesting to see the level of scrutiny that participating candidates submit to when they seek the recommendation of the Chicago Bar Association.Only the CBA and the Chicago Council of Lawyers provide reasons for their ratings of each candidate. Sometimes these ratings do not agree, as will be discussed in a future post.
It seems most unfortunate that the CBA would use certain catch phrases in dissing judicial candidates who are out of favor with the powers that be. Such seems to be the case in particular with the Kosinski and Pucinski vacancies in the heavily Polish-American 10th Subcircuit.
ReplyDeleteIn those races, the Democratic Party bosses slated candidates from the eastern tip of the Subciruit, who are not Polish and have nothing in common with the interests and concerns of most of the residents of the subcircuit.
Isn't it funny how the CBA dismisses the qualifications of Steven Sidlowski in the Kowalski vacancy (an attorney with years of experience as a Hearing Officer in Juvenile Court, where he conducted thousands of permanentcy hearings on behalf of Juvenile Court Judges; before that, he was a legal counsel for the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago). It is even weirder how the CBA claims that Joan Ellen Smuda (running in the Pucinski vacancy) does not have the qualifications to be a Circuit Court Judge, given the fact that she has previously served as a Circuit Court Judge by appointment of the Illinois Supreme Court.
If someone can provide us with a legitimate explanation to these recommendations that doesn't carry the blatant stench of Machine politics, it would be most appreciated. However, I will not be holding my breath waiting for that to happen.
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ReplyDeleteFed-up: I am entirely certain that the blessings of the Democratic Machine are not a prerequisite for receiving a Qualified rating from the CBA -- if it were otherwise I would never have been found Qualified in 1994, 1996, and 2001.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is true that I have a nodding acquaintance with my Alderman... but he's a Republican.
However, I can confirm for you that, when Joan Smuda ran in 1996, trying to hold a seat on the bench to which she'd been appointed, she was rated qualified by the CBA. (Source: via Westlaw, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, March 6, 1996, 3/6/96 CHIDLB 1.)
The link no longer works, is there an updated one?
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