Why bother to mention the CTU here if it only makes one Cook County judicial endorsement?
Well... remember our discussion the other day, about how the influence of the bar associations is declining in every election cycle, while the reach of the Check Your Judges guide, published by Injustice Watch, just keeps growing and growing?
Remember that?
Well... here is a quote from the CTU Endorsement page:
For every election, the Injustice Watch website compiles a biography and scorecard for each and every judicial candidate. These dossiers are not endorsements, but provide essential information to help you cast an informed vote. Each entry includes official experience, notable achievements and entanglements, money raised and main backers, as well as endorsements. We highly encourage members to review candidate files for your elections as you cast your ballot.The Alliance has recently published its evaluation grids, but while all 13 Alliance groups participate in the investigation of judicial candidates, the investigations being the foundation of the ratings given, most lack the resources to provide narrative opinions explaining their evaluations.
Two Alliance groups do explain their ratings. The Chicago Council of Lawyers, which has a long history of providing narrative explanations of its ratings, came out with its narratives last week (FWIW coverage here, here, and here). The Illinois State Bar Association, which began providing narrative explanations in most recent election cycles, expects to provide its narratives soon.
And, of course, the Chicago Bar Association, which is not an Alliance member (the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening was formed, as its full name reveals, to break up the stranglehold that the CBA had on the evaluation of Cook County judicial hopefuls) does not have its evaluations out yet either. FWIW has learned that the CBA is hoping to have these out later this week. When they do come out, there will be explanations of the ratings issued. Moreover, the CBA conducts a separate investigation from that conducted by the Alliance -- similar, but separate -- giving the bar groups two distinct investigation processes in which to identify promising candidates as well as candidates who may not be quite so promising.
But Injustice Watch has been out there for some time already. Updates may be forthcoming, perhaps, as peer evaluations come out. But the bar groups are no longer driving the train; they're running hard just to catch the train as it leaves the station.
Back to the CTU for one moment, because we've been highlighting endorsements made for State's Attorney and Clerk of the Circuit Court by each of the various unions profiled: The CTU stands with Clayton Harris III for State's Attorney and Mariyana Spyropolous for Clerk of the Circuit Court.
We hear that explanation a lot, for why most of the bar groups don’t explain their ratings: it’s because they lack the resources to do it. This is just more of what I said before about bar groups not really wanting to influence voters. Exactly what resources are lacking? Presumably, every group that puts itself into the process has a sufficiently large committee for a proper discussion that produces each rating in a responsible manner. Don’t they? Those discussions can be transcribed--heck a simple phone app can do it on the spot--and then the sufficiently large committee can split up the work and draft a proper set of summary paragraphs in an afternoon. No this is not a resource problem. Let’s put that to rest.
ReplyDeleteIf influencing voters were a priority for these groups then they’d all be completely transparent about the reasons for their ratings, the criteria and procedures that were used, and the people who produced them. A few of the bar groups do make an effort--CBA/CCL/ISBA with explanations; ISBA posts their committee roster; CCL does a nice job of presenting their procedures and criteria--but none is completely transparent and most offer nothing at all.
Injustice Watch, whatever anyone thinks of their point of view, most of what they post is simple objective background information that none of the bar groups posts. And their website tells you who produces their content.
The bars don't lack "resources" to prepare narratives. They lack competence and most of the JEC members are wannabe judges looking to tank the competition.
ReplyDelete