It begins: First candidate announcement seen, first caps blown

Let's begin with a statement that will be obvious to most FWIW readers, but which is offered for the benefit of those who may be new here: The 2022 primary system isn't really starting now. It started, at the latest, on November 3, 2020, when the polls closed at 7:00 p.m. For months and months already judicial hopefuls have been making such rounds as they can in the COVID-19 era, hatching plans and schemes, forming and abandoning alliances, seeking support from friends and familly, and public officials alike. They have been seeking, and perhaps paying for, advice from political masterminds (most of them self-appointed) and all without most people knowing anything about it.

They are starting to emerge now, the earliest declared candidates hoping to preempt others' less well-formed plans.

And I do not mean to suggest that Dan Balanoff's Facebook announcement (screengrab below) is necessarily the first public announcement of a Cook County judicial candiacy for 2022. It just happened to burble up, via the inscrutable algorithms of Mr. Zuckerberg's terrible invention, through the flotsam and jetsam of my Facebook newsfeed, at a time when I was online to see it.

There will be others. Many others, presumably. Don't count on me to find them all, or even most of them. Stop back tomorrow when I'll review how judicial candidates and their supporters can best take advantage of this site.

Meanwhile, in other news, contribution caps are officially 'blown' for Judge Rena Marie Van Tine's forthcoming election bid. Van Tine, a long-serving associate judge, was appointed to the countywide Leeming vacancy by the Illinois Supreme Court this past February. According to the Illinois State Board of Elections (ISBE) website, Van Tine's campaign committee has received $400,000 in loans from a family member, a quarter million on St. Patrick's Day and another $150,000 on March 29. Her campaign has also received over $100,000 in donations from another individual.

Some of that money has already been spent on a campaign website. (When I find enough candidate websites, I will start a list in the blog Sidebar, as I've done in previous campaign cycles.)

Ordinarily, there are limits on what an individual, corporation, or PAC can donate to any Illinois candidate (for the forthcoming election cycle, the individual limit is $6,000; for more, click here). These limits are the "caps" of which we speak here. But there is an exception set out in §9-8.5(h) of the Illinois Election Code, 10 ILCS 5/9-8.5(h). This provision states:

Self-funding candidates. If a public official, a candidate, or the public official’s or candidate’s immediate family contributes or loans to the public official’s or candidate’s political committee or to other political committees that transfer funds to the public official’s or candidate’s political committee or makes independent expenditures for the benefit of the public official’s or candidate’s campaign during the 12 months prior to an election in an aggregate amount of more than (i) $250,000 for statewide office or (ii) $100,000 for all other elective offices, then the public official or candidate shall file with the State Board of Elections, within one day, a Notification of Self-funding that shall detail each contribution or loan made by the public official, the candidate, or the public official’s or candidate’s immediate family. Within 2 business days after the filing of a Notification of Self-funding, the notification shall be posted on the Board’s website and the Board shall give official notice of the filing to each candidate for the same office as the public official or candidate making the filing, including the public official or candidate filing the Notification of Self-funding. Notice shall be sent via first class mail to the candidate and the treasurer of the candidate’s committee. Notice shall also be sent by e-mail to the candidate and the treasurer of the candidate’s committee if the candidate and the treasurer, as applicable, have provided the Board with an e-mail address. Upon posting of the notice on the Board’s website, all candidates for that office, including the public official or candidate who filed a Notification of Self-funding, shall be permitted to accept contributions in excess of any contribution limits imposed by subsection (b). If a public official or candidate filed a Notification of Self-funding during an election cycle that includes a general primary election or consolidated primary election and that public official or candidate is nominated, all candidates for that office, including the nominee who filed the notification of self-funding, shall be permitted to accept contributions in excess of any contribution limit imposed by subsection (b) for the subsequent election cycle. For the purposes of this subsection, “immediate family” means the spouse, parent, or child of a public official or candidate.

Now, of course, any candidate who chooses to file against Judge Van Tine will also have the privilege of accepting unlimited funds from any legal donor, if such persons or corporations can be found. And like every candidate, he or she would be able, if he or she is able, to put in as much of his or her own money besides. There have been instances of one self-funded judicial candidate squaring off against another self-funded candidate. There was at least one such contest in the 2020 primary season. The problem there, of course, is that, when two lavishly-funded candidates square off, one must lose. And only the winning candidate, and the losing candidate's consultants (assuming they collect on their bills), can be happy then.

My thanks to the FWIW reader (surprisingly named "Anonymous") who alrerted me to the lifting of the caps in Judge Van Tine's campaign.