Chicago Votes issues Voters Guide, provides lessons along with cartoons

This is at least the third election cycle in which Chicago Votes has issued a Voter's Guide. That's the cover of the guide at left; here is a link to the guide.

Who is Chicago Votes, you ask? It describes itself, in the guide, as "a non-partisan, non-profit organization building a more inclusive democracy by putting power in the hands of young Chicagoans. We’re engaging a new generation of leaders, changing laws to make Chicago and Illinois a better place to be young, and in the process, we’re making democracy FUN." (CAPS in original.) (Aside to judicial candidates: Are you having "FUN" right now?)

The Chicago Votes Voters Guide weaves cartoons throughout. This is a page from one of the comics that may be of particular interest for judges and judicial hopefuls, created by C.D. Everett, according to the guide (click to enlarge or clarify):

According to the guide, Everett and, indeed, "[a]ll three artists who contributed to this guide are incarcerated and unable to participate in the election. At Chicago Votes, we believe democracy works when more people are involved. To learn about our efforts to restore voting rights to people in prison, go to chicagovotes.com."

(While you're there, you may wish to check out the "Sh*t Talkin' Central" page. During this busy time of the election cycle, I didn't have much opportunity to browse, but I'm bookmarking this article, entitled, "On Class Conflict in the Japanese Animation Industry," to peruse when time permits.)

So much for the cartoons. But what about the lessons?

After every election cycle, the bar groups and all the other Suits and Straights engage in collective hand-wringing, bemoaning their declining influence. (Note to self: I really have to stop trying to imitate hip, young-person argot -- my efforts increasingly resemble the cringier dialog in "The Way to Eden," the Star Trek TOS "hippie episode.")

The bar groups complain, but they fail to take effective action to increase their impact.

Of the now 13 Alliance bar groups (the number of groups seems to grow every election cycle), only the BWLA has released its judicial candidate ratings. The Chicago Bar Association hasn't released its ratings yet either.

I know the ratings are coming. I know the bar groups are working hard (and the administrators of the Alliance groups and the CBA are working even harder) trying to get the ratings completed and ready for mass release. But early voting is again already underway and tempus fugit. (There. Let the Young People look something up for a change.)

Meanwhile, the reach of the Check Your Judges guide, published by Injustice Watch, just keeps growing and growing.

The Girl, I Guess Progressive Voter Guide, that I wrote about just this week, acknowledges "our amazing friends at Injustice Watch." The Chicago Votes Voters Guide explains why it thinks voting for judges is important:

Of all the people on your ballot, judges are the folks you are most likely to encounter. They have a ton of power over people’s lives, deciding the outcomes of child custody, traffic tickets, and whether or not someone will be sent to prison and for how long.

And what should the FUN young people use to choose their judges? Chicago Votes publishes a list of judicial candidates, some of whom are marked in red to indicate that they have 'past controversies.' According to who? Why, Injustice Watch, of course.

Chicago Votes expressly denies making endorsements... but "encourages voters to find more information at injusticewatch.org." And, just in case the "new generation of leaders" doesn't get the hint, there's a big button live link straight to Injustice Watch.

And Chicago Votes sent its constituents to Injustice Watch in 2022 and 2020, too.

The CBA and the Alliance expend all sorts of scarce human resources on the investigation of Cook County judicial candidates. Now I realize that the bar screening process has its critics, and charges have been made, from time to time, about the infiltration of particular agendas, or persons with particular biases, into the bar screening process. No human enterprise is perfect. But the bar groups try to be objective, even if they do not always succeed, and they do good work.

Injustice Watch, on the other hand, and as you may have noticed, has a distinct point of view. That's not meant as a criticism; it is simply a fact. I have gotten on well with the many people at Injustice Watch with whom I have interacted over the years. Our 'beats' overlap, especially at election time. They have a job to do, and they do that job as best they can, but always in accord with their view of the world. The group's point of view does not wholly undermine the worth of their investigations -- which are often illuminating and valuable -- but the good people at Injustice Watch are not lawyers. Things lawyers understand and appreciate and accept in the ordinary course may seem confusing or even sinister to non-lawyers (and, sometimes, I think, vice versa).

But it is the Injustice Watch investigations of Cook County judicial candidates that now command the field of voter education. The influence of that group is multiplied with Chicago Votes and Girl, I Guess and who knows what other sites that I haven't found.

And that's the issue for me: Don't bar groups want to influence voters with their ratings? They don't have to denigrate the work done by Injustice Watch in order to do this. But, if the bar groups want to recover their influence, they have to speak up sooner. There may have been a reason, before widespread early voting, to 'hold' ratings until all (or nearly all) were complete. But the world has changed. Rolling releases of bar evaluations would really help increase the bar groups' potential influence.

If the bar groups really don't want to cede the investigation of judicial candidates to Injustice Watch, they have to find a way to get the results of their investigations before the voting public as soon as possible.

(Stepping down from soapbox... again....)