Four file for countywide Flanagan vacancy

Four #CookCountyJudicial candidates for the countywide Flanagan vacancy are lottery-eligible. Judge Preston Jones, Jr. holds this seat pursuant to appointment by the Illinois Supreme Court. Jones was slated for this vacancy by the Cook County Democratic Party only a few weeks before that September 2017 appointment. Prior to his appointment, Jones served as an Assistant Public Defender. He joined that office in 1994, when he received his Illinois law license. He had been a member of the Homicide Task Force in that office since 2004.

Just the other day I heard the Public Defender's Office touted as the current cradle of Cook County judges -- in the way that Miami of Ohio has been, for so many years, a cradle of football coaches. In the course of my professional lifetime, the judicial cradle has shifted. If the needle now points to the PD's office, it used to point more to the Attorney General's Office or the State's Attorney's Office.

And who knows where the needle may move next?

Keely Patricia Hillison, a partner at Parrillo Weiss LLC, also filed Monday for the Flanagan vacancy. That's a link to the campaign Facebook page in the preceding sentence; I could find no campaign website. Hillison has been licensed as an attorney in Illinois since 1985.

Will Parrillo be the next (or another) cradle of Cook County judges? Another Parrillo partner, Mary Kathleen McHugh, was elected to the bench in 2016....

Also filing for the Flanagan vacancy on Monday was Ioana Salajanu, a partner with Rock, Fusco & Connelly, LLC. Salajanu is seeking to become the first Romanian-American elected to the bench in Illinois. Salajanu (pictured at right) has been licensed in Illinois since 2000.

The fourth candidate to file Monday for the Flanagan vacancy was Amanda Moira Pillsbury. According to ARDC, Pillsbury, who works as an Assistant State's Attorney, has been licensed to practice in Illinois since 2004. I could find neither a campaign website nor even a Facebook page for Pillsbury, but Russ Stewart reported in this October 11, 2017 column that Pillsbury was part of a 'state's attorneys' slate' and that she would be filing for the Flanagan vacancy.

Because each of these four candidates were counted as being 'in line' when the doors opened Monday morning at the Illinois State Board of Elections, these candidates are eligible for the ballot lottery to determine who will have the top ballot position in this race. Anyone filing for this vacancy now would be no more than fifth on the list (unless one or more candidates withdraws or is successfully challenged).