Weeping Angels strike Springfield yet again: Countywide vacancies will continue in Cook County but the number of associate judgeships is going down

A year ago, here on FWIW, I was wondering about P.A. 102-0693's apparent elimination of 55 countywide judicial slots in Cook County -- and, with it, the elimination of 55 opportunities for the Cook County Democratic Party to cash substantial checks from eager lawyers in exchange for the privilege of the Party's endorsement for countywide judicial vacancies.

At the time I was concerned about the nine persons already slated for countywide vacancies in the June 2022 primary -- I sometimes get hung up on language actually used in statutes (which I thought wsa something lawyers were supposed to do) -- but the election went off without a hitch and, in the event, 10 countywide vacancies were filled.

But that did not resolve the question of how future countywide vacancies might be allocated among the newly created subcircuits.

Countywide vacancies did occur thereafter in the normal course, and some of these were filled by temporary appointments, as the Supreme Court sometimes does when it has a mind to.

After one such appointment, last summer, I reached out to the Supreme Court's press officer to find out which new subcircuit would be given the privilege of filling the latest vacancy. I printed the response: "The vacancy created... will be filled by election in 2024 so if it needs to be allotted to a subcircuit, that allotment will occur closer to the 2024 election."

If?

I questioned the usage of the conditional word at the time -- if the vacancy needs to be allocated? Wasn't that the plain language of the statute?

Sure, I thought it was a little odd that the Legislature -- wholly controlled as it was (and is) by the Democratic Party -- would deprive the Cook County Democratic Party of the significant revenue streams, actual and incidental, created by countywide judicial vacancies. But I thought, well gosh, the Senate President is not just a township Committeeperson, when it comes to the selection of judicial candidates in our fair county, he is in fact one of the most influential. So I figured, however inconvenient this might be for the Cook County Democratic Party for the next several election cycles, this was all a done deal.

But the Supreme Court (or at least its press officer) understood the political untenability of the vacancy allocaton method specified by P.A. 102-0693 much better than I did.

And, sure enough, late last week, the Weeping Angels struck Springfield again.

The vehicle chosen for utter transformation on this occasion was HB0045, a 307-page behemoth that would have conformed language in a host of statutes to current fashion (alderman to alderperson, and so forth). (They're not always one-paragraph wonders.) HB0045 sailed through the House after it was introduced in January 2021, passing 102-6 in April of that year. It moved to the Senate and seemed to be sailing through there as well... until it was parked awaiting its third and final reading.

And there it remained until January 5 of this year, when it was revived, only to be eviscerated, with all its previous 307 pages torn out and 70 new ones substituted in their stead. On that same day, it sailed through committee and back onto the Senate floor for what was already (technically at least, which is all that apparently matters) its third reading... where it passed... on a party line vote... and -- still on the same day, mind you -- went back to the House which sent it to and through committee and back onto the floor. By this time, a new day had dawned. And on this new day, January 6, the "amendment" to its bill was accepted by the House, also on a party-line vote.

It will presumably be signed into law promptly, if indeed this has not already occurred.

Don't blink!

Obviously, I did not find out about any of this on my own. FWIW has a great many sharp readers, some of whom actually know what's going on in the political world, and one of them -- named Anonymous, like most of my readers -- sent me a link to the Senate "Amendmendment."

So what happened?

The amendment addresses how the validity of mail-in ballots is determined (worthy of its own post, obviously) and makes changes across the State to the Judicial Circuits Districting Act of 2022.

To which FWIW readers say -- get to how it changes things in Cook County already.

OK. First, there will be countywide vacancies to be filled in Cook County in 2024 and beyond. The number of countywide judgeships remains at 94.

Now, the 55 new resident judgeships (in the five new Cook County subcircuits) will be filled from vacancies occurring among the ranks of the associate judges.

Section 2f(d-5) of the Circuit Courts Act, 705 ILCS 35/2f(d-5) has been totally rewritten. Last year's §2f(d-5) provided:

All vacancies in circuit judgeships in the Circuit of Cook County, which are not allotted to Judicial Subcircuits 1 through 15 pursuant to subsection (c) of this Section, existing on or occurring on or after June 1, 2022 shall be allotted in numerical order to Judicial Subcircuits 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 until there are 11 resident judges to be elected from each of those subcircuits (for a total of 55).

(It was the "existing on" language that had me worried about the 2022 countywide candidates: Vacancies exist until they are filled by election; existing vacancies can be temporarily filled by the Supreme Court, but the vacancies still exist. But we got past that... somehow... so we move on.)

As now rewritten, §2-f(d-5) clarifies that a vacancy occurring in one of the existing subcircuits goes automatically to the same numbered subcircuit under the new map, even if that subcircuit is now on the other side of the county. It also purports to address the allocation of the few remaining pre-subcircuit resident judgeships. But the meat of the new provision is this:

Any vacancies in formerly associate judgeships converted to resident circuit judgeships in the Circuit of Cook County occurring on or after June 1, 2023 shall be allotted in numerical order to Judicial Subcircuits 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 until there are 11 resident judges to be elected from each of those subcircuits (for a total of 55). The maximum number of formerly associate judgeships converted to resident circuit judgeships which may be allotted to Judicial Subcircuits 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 in an election cycle shall be 2 judgeships per subcircuit.

This is a reference to an amendment to §2(a)(4) of the Judicial Vacancies Act, 705 ILCS 40/2(a)(4), which increases the number of resident (for our purposes, subcircuit) judges in Cook County from 165 to 220 and adds a new §2(a)(4)(vi), which in turn explains that the new 55 resident judges will be authorized one by one, "one each for each reduction upon vacancy in the office of associate judge in the Circuit of Cook County as those vacancies occur on and after the effective date of this amendatory Act of 102nd General Assembly and as those vacancies are determined under subsection (b-5) of Section 2 of the Associate Judges Act until the total resident judgeships authorized under this item (vi) is 55."

The reference here is to new §2(b-5) of the Associate Judges Act, 705 ILCS 45/2(b-5). We're coming to this in due course.

But first, we need to look at §2(a) of the Associate Judges Act, which sets the 'maximum' number of associate judges in Cook County as a division problem: Take the population of Cook County (still the only circuit with a population of more than 3,000,000) and divide that figure by 29,000. So the statutory maximum number of associate judges changes according to population fluctuations in Cook County. It went down in 2010. It went up by two as a result of the 2020 census.

Of course, nothing is simple when it comes to calculating the number of judges in Cook County. Section 2(a) of the Associate Judges effectively adds six associates to the result of the division problem referred to in the preceding paragraph with this sentence: "In addition, in circuits of 1,000,000 or more inhabitants, there shall be one additional associate judge authorized for each municipal district of the circuit court."

That maximum number was reduced when the first 15 subcircuits were created. Section 2(b) of the Associate Judges Act reduced the maximum by 60.

(Or thereabouts at least. I did some ciphering today preparing this article. After the 2010 Census, which put the population of Cook County at 5,194,675, the maximum number of Cook County associate judges per §2(a) was 186 (5.194.675 divided by 29,000 comes out to just over 179, which rounds up under the "or part thereof" language in §2(a) to 180 plus one for each of our six municipal districts). Reduce that number by 60 as per §2(b) and we have 136. However, in 2019, when all the associate judges were up for retention, there were 137 relected by their peers, and one rejected, making a total of 138. 'Close enough for government work,' you may say, and I can't disagree, really, but it offends my sense of neatness. Maybe someone can explain the seeming discrepancy.)

Anyway (to resume the narrative thread), new §2(b-5) reduces, or will reduce, the maximum number of associate judges in Cook County by another 55. This is the operative language:

Each associate judgeship vacancy that occurs on or after June 1, 2023 shall be converted to a resident circuit judgeship and allotted to a subcircuit pursuant to subsection (d-5) of Section 2f of the Circuit Courts Act, and that maximum number shall be reduced by one until the total number of associate judges authorized under subsection (a) is reduced by 55. The maximum number of formerly associate judgeships converted to resident circuit judgeships which may be allotted to subcircuits 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 in an election cycle shall be 2 judgeships per subcircuit. A vacancy occurs when an associate judge dies, resigns, retires, is removed, or is not reappointed upon expiration of his or her term; a vacancy does not occur at the expiration of a term if the associate judge is reappointed.

The current class of associate judges working its way through interviews will not be derailed by this new statute. And no more than 10 associate judge vacancies in any given election cycle can be allocated to the new subcircuits. But the frequency of new classes of associate judges, absent extraordinary turnover, will likely diminish.

And all these changes were accomplished in a day.

It's amazing what our Legislature can accomplish when it wants to. It's no way to run a proper government -- but it's amazing nonetheless.

Don't blink!