Why FWIW will cover Downstate Supreme Court races in this election cycle

The State of Illinois is divided into five judicial districts. Article VI, Section 2 of the 1970 Illinois Constitution declares Cook County to be the First Judicial District. Cook County elects three justices of the seven-person Illinois Supreme Court. All the current Cook County justices were elected as Democrats; for the foreseeable future, and maybe just a bit beyond, all likely future Cook County justices will be elected as Democrats, too.

But while the reliable Democratic voting population is not packed exclusively into Cook County, it is by far the richest available source of Democratic votes in Illinois. In last year's redistricting, mapmakers looking to secure the hegemony of the Democratic Party in Congressional and General Assembly Districts sliced deeply into Cook County as necessary to create as many favorable districts as possible.

However, when it comes to drawing judicial maps, because of the language of our Constitution, the First Judicial District is not available for vote mining. And Article VI, Section 2 further provides that "the other four districts [must have] substantially equal population, each of which shall be compact and composed of contiguous counties."

Until last year, the last successful redrawing of the Judicial District (Supreme Court) boundaries came in 1964.

The indivisibility of Cook County was only one of the problems that bedeviled would-be judical mapmakers. The other practical consideration was created by Article VI, Section 6 of the 1970 Constitution. This provision provides, in pertinent part, "Appeals from final judgments of a Circuit Court are a matter of right to the Appellate Court in the Judicial District in which the Circuit Court is located...." Thus, all counties in a single circuit had to be in the same judicial district, too.

It wasn't too many years ago that Lake and McHenry Counties together comprised the 19th Circuit Court. Will County was joined by Kankakee and Iriquois Counties in the old 12th Circuit, and Kane, DeKalb, and Kendall Counties together made up the 16th Circuit. All those collar counties now are stand-alone circuits, as DuPage has been for some time. These smaller building blocks were then available to build new Judicial Districts, should ever the need arise.

But there was no immediate hurry, from a purely partisan point of view. The Democrats enjoyed at least a 4-3 majority on the Illinois Supreme Court in recent decades. While the 2nd and 4th Districts produced justices with Republican Party credentials, the 5th District could, and did, elect Democrats from time to time. And, in 2000, the 3rd District, once thought safely Republican, elected Justice Tom Kilbride. He was retained in 2010 -- but not in 2020.

Unless the lines for the judicial districts were redrawn, there was a good chance that Justice Kilbride's successor would be elected as a Republican, tipping the Supreme Court's balance to 4-3 Republican.
Like seemingly everywhere else in America, partisan divisions in Illinois have become increasingly pronounced. Outside the collar counties the state is increasingly Republican. Inside Cook County, elected Republicans, at any level, are becoming increasingly scarce.

The collar counties are in something of a flux. They all went for Republican Bruce Rauner in the 2014 gubernatorial race -- but (except for McHenry) they all went for Pritzker in the 2018 race. And none of them (except McHenry) went for Trump in 2016 or 2020 -- but was that Trump or trend?

The Supreme Court races, in the newly drawn 2nd and 3rd Judicial Districts, will go a long way toward answering that question.

As redrawn, the 2nd and 3rd Judicial Districts are much smaller geographically; between them, they divide up the collar counties. The 2nd Judicial District now consists of DeKalb, Kendall, Kane, Lake, and McHenry Counties, while the 3rd Judicial District now is made up of Bureau, LaSalle, Grundy, Iroquois, Kankakee, DuPage and Will Counties. While neither will be a sure thing, based on recent results in statewide races, both these new judicial districts may elect justices nominated by the Democratic Party. (It's interesting to note that the old collar county circuits, though they could have been broken up for this redistricting, were not in fact broken up.)

I'm guessing that the smart political people think that, of the two new districts, the 2nd Judicial District is more likely to place a Democrat on the Supreme Court. Thus, in Shia Kapos' Politico - Illinois Playbook this morning, she carries this "scoop" about polling results in the 2nd Judicial District (emphases in original):

According to a polling memo shared with Playbook, the race to fill the Illinois Supreme court seat in the new 2nd District remains a toss-up. The poll, conducted by Brian Stryker’s Impact Research for candidate Elizabeth Rochford, shows a virtual tie. If the election were held today, Rochford would get 12 percent of the vote, to Rene Cruz’s 11 percent, Nancy Rotering’s 10 percent, and 67 percent undecided. All of the candidates are within the margin of error.

The polling memo says Rochford passes her competitors when respondents learn that she's a Lake County Circuit Court judge and Rotering is mayor of Highland Park: Rochford gets 40 percent to Rotering’s 19 percent. Cruz, a Kane County Circuit Court judge, likely isn’t included in the polling memo because he’s trailing in fundraising. The point being, candidates need money and messaging to get their names before voters for the June 28 primary.

There are those who will look at all this partisan maneuvering and scoff: Judges are not simply precinct captains with gavels, they may say, and their party 'labels' are not relevant to the jobs they are elected to do.

I agree. If it were up to me, judges would be elected through a non-partisan primary process. It staggers the imagination that Chicago alderpersons are officially elected on a "non-partisan" basis and Cook County judges are not.

However, in the real world, partisan loyalty is part of the judicial election process and can (or at least can help) get a wannabe a seat in Traffic Court. I think those that move ahead in the judiciary are those that can leave raw partisanship furthest behind, so that party labels should matter least in a race for the Illinois Supreme Court. However, as my commenters periodically remind me, no one cares what I think. Moreover, millions of dollars are going to be spent in these two Supreme Court races precisely because some people, and perhaps a great many, think that party labels are critically important on the Illinois Supreme Court.

So we will look at the races for the 2nd and 3rd Judicial Districts here on FWIW as time permits.