Supreme Court candidates answer another Questionnaire

Three of the four candidates in the Democratic primary for the Illinois Supreme Court have answered questions posed by the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice and the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.

Because the responses are posted as one .pdf document (the link here is to the ICPR website, but I checked both sites, just to be sure) I can't break out the individual responses for my Organizing the Data post. The three candidates responding (in order) are Appellate Court Justice Joy Virginia Cunningham, Appellate Court Justice Aurelia Pucinski, and Supreme Court Justice Mary Jane Theis.

The questions to which the candidates responded are these:

1. Do you feel that that there is a need to change the standards that determines when judicial recusal is required?

2. Do you support the creation of procedures and uniform guidelines for recusal where attorneys or litigants before the court have contributed to campaign committees in support of their candidacy?

3. Do you support a system in which a level of campaign contributions would require an automatic review for recusal?

4. Do you support a system in which a level of campaign contributions would trigger an automatic review for recusal by an outside/impartial arbiter other than the judge himself or herself?

5. If you answered “Yes” to any part of questions 2, 3 or 4, do you believe that the need for judicial recusal should be based on:

a fixed dollar amount
a fixed percentage of total funds raised
or some other trigger?

6. What procedures do you think should be put in place for handling recusal for judges on the:

Illinois Supreme Court
Illinois Appellate Court
Circuit Court

7. Do you support the creation of a distinct public database showing contributions to political committees in support of judges’ candidacies?

8. Do you support public financing of judicial campaigns for:

Illinois Supreme Court
Illinois Appellate Court
Circuit Court