CWBChicago offers guidance in some Cook County retention races

Not endorsements.

CWBChicago wants to make it clear that it neither makes endorsements nor recommendations in judicial elections (or in any others).

But, yesterday, CWBChicago published two posts offering information about certain retention races. The posts are:

• Chief Judge Timothy Evans is up for retention during the current election cycle. How should you vote?
• Here are some things to know before you vote for (or against) the Cook County judges on your ballot

Both posts provide extensive links to prior CWBChicago coverage about the judges identified (Chief Judge Evans and Judges Susana Ortiz, Charles Patrick Burns, Aleksandra Gillespie, William H. Hooks, and John Fitzgerald Lyke, Jr.).

And, before someone takes me to task for not saying it, I will say that CWBChicago, like Injustice Watch, has a point of view. Well, not a point of view like IJW... but a distinct voice, shall we say, just as IJW has its own distinctive voice....

Both publications are particularly interested in the criminal courts. Both will agree that most of the Circuit Court judges on the retention ballot are assigned elsewhere. And while CWB and IJW will have vastly different takes on whether Bond Court judges are too lenient or too restrictive, both would agree that, contrary to the insinuations of some politicians, almost all of the judges up for retention this year are not Bond Court judges. As this Tweet from IJW's Maya Dukmasova makes clear:

Lightfoot said "many such judges 'are up for retention' on the November ballot."

🚨False🚨

2 bond court judges are up for retention. One nearly lost his son in a shooting. The other has a record of setting very high bail amounts. #CheckYourJudgeshttps://t.co/Dy5PQCMgSR

— Maya Dukmasova (@mdoukmas) October 4, 2022

CWBChicago and IJW may draw different conclusions from mostly the same data -- but they share their data along with the conclusions. Which permits voters to draw their own conclusions.