Cook County Democratic Party skipping ahead to 2026, too

Remember how I told you that the bar associations were essentially skipping 2025 and plunging straight into 2026? First, the Alliance and then the CBA announced efforts to beef up their respective judicial evaluation committees.

They're looking for evaluators now because 2026 judicial candidates will shortly be popping up, like dandelions in the early spring.

The candidates will be surfacing earlier than ever this year because of our insane primary system.

Persons who are now thinking of running for judge are running for a job whose starting date is the first Monday in December 2026. For those of you who don't wish to take off your shoes to calculate, that's 668 days from today. Essentially one year... on Mars. That vast length of time still may be difficult to comprehend. Let's try it this way: At the next status hearing on your Law Division case, tell the honorable motion judge that you want 668 days to get your depositions done. Then duck. Not a civil attorney? How about this: April 11, 2023 was 668 days ago. How much water has gone under the bridge since then for you, Dear Reader?

Normal people, in the real world, don't usually deal with timescales like this when dealing with potential employment. You, Dear Reader, may have sought work previously. At least I don't think FWIW attracts many readers who are still living with Mom and Dad. When seeking employment, you have looked at positions currently open, or coming open soon. Where a job is made available, you have presumably sought the earliest possible start date, allowing only for a courteous transition from your current situation (the proverbial two weeks' notice, typically, with adjustments appropriate to the circumstances).
For those serious about running in the next election cycle, your part is not to question the rationality of our system (that way lies madness); rather, your part is to figure out how to survive in the real world, and remain employed, while pursuing this chimera. You have to pretend, for one thing, that the election calendar makes sense, though it doesn't, because you must master it.

Remember: Assuming that this election is consistent with our recent elections, the identities of those persons who will get to be judges 668 days hence will be determined in 403 days, on March 17, 2026. To get on the ballot -- to have a chance to run in the Democratic primary -- you will have to start circulating petitions in August of this year -- only six months down the road.

Makes it a bit more immediate, don't it? (Even if it doesn't make it one iota less insane....)

The Cook County Democratic Party lives with this calendar. With everything moved up a month or so for the 2026 campaign season, slating may be in June this year... in four months or so... pre-slating may be in April... perhaps no more than 60 days hence.

Which brings us back to the March 29 Road to the Robe presentation. No speakers have been announced for this event, but, in the past, the persons who have presented were truly well-versed in Cook County election law and procedure. Anyone thinking of running in 2026 would do well to consider attending this event. The information you need to register is on the graphic above.

But... remember this: The Cook County Democratic Party is not just putting on an educational event; it is actively shopping for candidates. This is one way of finding out who is running... and who the Party may be interested in backing.

In response to a reader's question: No, the primary is not moving in 2026 -- but filing deadlines will come sooner in 2025

A reader asked me to look into a rumor that legislation had passed in Springfield to move the 2026 primary "up" -- that it would be held sooner than has been customary -- and that, as a consequence, candidate filing might begin as early as August of this year.

Readers may remember that Illinois has fiddled with the primary dates before. It was moved back to Mel Brooks' birthday (June 28) in 2022 (a Covid consequence). In 2008, the primary was held on February 5. This was done to improve the presidential chances of a certain Illinois senator; a big win in his home state helped Barack Obama on the road to the White House. The early date was retained for 2010, when the primary was held on Groundhog's Day, but the primary was returned to mid-March in 2012.

So it was not out of the question that something had been rammed through Sprinfield in the dead of night. That's when they generally do things there, or at least, that's generally when they do anything they think to be important.

And we just started a new General Assembly this month... meaning there was an opportunity for last-minute shenanigans in the dying moments of the expiring one. Which, no doubt, there were -- but not with the election calendar.

The 2026 primary will be held on the Feast of St. Patrick itself. (Insert your own questions here about how, if the primary is held on March 17, snakes can still get on the ballot.)

However there was some tinkering done with the election calendar in Springfield last year and this does impact Cook County judicial hopefuls.

Pursuant to P.A. 103-0586, which amends, inter alia, Section 7-12(1) of the Election Code, 10 ILCS 5/7-12(1), petition filing will open Monday, October 27, 2005 and close on Monday, November 3. The special judicial filing period (for vacancies occurring in the three weeks prior to November 3) will begin on Monday, November 17 and end on Monday, November 24. And petition circulation, which under Section 7-10 of the Election Code, 10 ILCS 5/7-10, can not begin until August 5, that being the 90th day "preceding the last day provided in Section 7-12 for the filing of such petition."

Basically, the primary election stays put... but the election calendar gets moved up by 28 days.

That means challenges will come sooner, and be resolved sooner, and won't necessarily collide with Christmas, and judicial review of electoral board decisions may actually be concluded before the start of early voting.

FWIW readers will remember the mischief that followed in the last election cycle, when people were already voting, or trying to, and the courts were still grappling with a couple of cases.

Now, none of the dates here should be accepted by you as set in stone -- other than the March 17 primary date. I have counted backwards from that date as the language of the Election Code commands, and have done the best I can, but the dates set out here are unofficial.

As for the statute itself, it did pass in an eyeblink, roughtly 48 hours after a second "amendment" was made to a bill originally purporting to amend the Children and Family Services Act. SB2412 did not become a shell bill until it arrived in the Illinois House. And then it aged in the House for a while, 11 months or so, like stinky cheese. I wrote about the bill at the time of its passage, even noting the potentially beneficial impact of this legislation on our congested election calendar. But, when the reader's inquiry came in, I did not immediately remember the new statute, or the prior article. I apologize for this lapse.

Chicago Bar Association recruiting new JEC members

The Chicago Bar Association is actively recruiting new members for its Judicial Evaluation Committee. And the CBA is making a full-on, multi-media effort in support of this recruitment drive. That's a full half-hour video, above, profiling the CBA JEC, and explaining how the JEC helps to foster judicial competence and independence. And, below? This is a clip from CBA JEC Chair Michelle Carey, explaining how she got involved in the JEC and how she believes it is helping her career:


I suppose the shorter clip is for the Millennials or Zoomers who prefer to consume information in Reel- or TikTok-sized bites.

(Or would that be "bytes"? Less accurate, surely, but it looks more technical....)

Anyway, CBA members of every generational cohort can download the application to join the CBA JEC from the CBA website.

Questions about CBA JEC service should be directed to Phyllis Lubinski at plubinski@chicagobar.org.

Przekota appointed to 11th Subcircuit vacancy

The Illinois Supreme Court, on the recommendation of Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis, has appointed Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Kimberly Przekota to the Roberts vacancy in the 11th Subcircuit.

The appointment is effective February 20 and will terminate on December 7, 2026. The Supreme Court's press release concerning the appointment may be found here.

In the 2024 election cycle, Przekota was a candidate for an 11th Subcircuit vacancy, in what proved to be the closest judical race in the county.

According to ARDC, Przekota has been licensed as an attorney in Illinois since 2008. Her appointment was pursuant to a process announced by Chief Justice Theis last December.

Cook County Judicial wannabes: It's already 2026

Happy New Year! Gosh, 2025 was short, wasn't it?

Alright, actually, the calendar still says 2025 and you haven't done a Rip Van Winkle. But if you are thinking about running for judge in Cook County in 2026 -- and I know many FWIW readers are thinking quite a bit about that -- the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening wants you to be thinking also about getting your evaluations in order for the forthcoming election cycle.

Specifically: Members of the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening will begin accepting completed questionnaires, effective immediately, from candidates who will be seeking vacancies (actual or potential) in the 2026 Cook County primary election. If you are thinking instead about filing for associate judge, this would be a good opportunity for you to submit your credentials as well.

Joyce Williams, the Alliance Administrator, told FWIW in a statement, "We are hoping to evaluate as many individuals as possible at this time to ensure potential candidates will be able to better utilize their ratings."

You may request the Alliance’s questionnaire via the following:

• Candidates seeking appointment or election to a judicial vacancy, but who are not currently serving in the jduciary, please request the Application for Non-Sitting Judge Questionnaire


• Cook County judges seeking retention, appellate, or supreme court vacancy, please request the Application for Sitting Judge Questionnaire

(The links will take you to the ISBA website. The questionnaires will be provided when you have completed the proper form.)

And for those of you who are not thinking about running for judge in 2026, please consider volunteering for the Judicial Evaluation Committees of any Alliance group you may belong to. In fact, consider joining one or more Alliance groups that you haven't already joined and then volunteer for JEC service.

You don't want to volunteer for JEC service if you may run for a vacancy in 2026, because the Alliance groups (and the Chicago Bar Association, for that matter) will automatically give a negative rating to any JEC member who runs. On the other hand, if you are thinking in terms of 2028 or 2030 or beyond, JEC service now will only help prepare you for your own eventual run. If you browse through the archives here, you will see that a great many of our sitting judges today had JEC service, sometimes quite extensive JEC service, in their backgrounds.

Different Alliance groups have differing procedures about how to join their JECs, so visit the website of the Alliance groups for which you wish to volunteer.

By now you've read or heard about the latest judicial suspension...

So I will not pile on.

If you aren't familiar with the case, Maya Dukmasova's article for Injustice Watch or Tim Hecke's article for CWBChicago will tell you everything you need to know about what got the judge into trouble. The order reassigning the judge in question may be found here.

I could not find a link to the statement issued by the Cook County Bar Association about the matter, but someone sent me an image:

The Chicago Bar Association also issued a statement. I won't embed the Tweet (I've seen these called Xeets recently, but that just bothers me), but here's the link if you want to read it.

I'm not here to defend the judge, or excuse her for sending the image.

I don't know the judge. I have no way of knowing what kind of a person she is. I have no magic x-ray machine with which to ascertain a person's innermost motivations or beliefs. I wish I did. With a machine like that I'd feel much better about hiring a contractor to remodel my kitchen. I cautiously observe -- generally, and not specifically commenting on the current controversy in any way -- that it would presumably be very difficult for an unreconstructed racist to work successfully as a Cook County Assistant Public Defender for over 25 years before going on the bench. One would expect that such a person would be unmasked much, much sooner than that.

On the other hand -- and I'm talking about me now, not about the judge in question -- I have a colleague -- a friend -- who, when I would get depressed about the practice; or about certain of my fellow practitioners; or about ungrateful, non-paying clients, would try and cheer me up by pointing out the absurdities of the situation. We have to laugh at things, she would tell me, if only to keep from crying.

No less an authority than the Mayo Clinic says that laughter can relieve stress. I would guess that many people might see the judge's most recent assignment as somewhat stressful.

Ah -- you say -- stress is no excuse: People who are stressed should not circulate tasteless cartoons, they should use tried and true stress relief measures, like abusing alcohol or drugs.

No... wait... that doesn't sound right.

Here's my take on it, for what it's worth: Judges have responsibilities and obligations that non-judges do not share. For example, judges should not engage in what is called "shitposting." Or even forwarding someone else's shitpost. My prediction is that the present situation will most likely be addressed internally -- the Supreme Court has judicial mentoring programs, for example -- and not necessarily by the Judicial Inquiry Board and the Courts Commission. Although it is a trite cliche to say so, in this case I think it applies: Time will tell.

Next Tuesday: Protecting Jews on Campus CLE

The Decalogue Society of Laywers will be presenting a CLE seminar next Tuesday, January 14, from 5:15 to 6:45 p.m. entitled "Protecting Jews on Campus." The poster for this event is reproduced above.

Registration for this Zoom event closes Monday, January 13, at noon. Register via this page on the Decalogue website or by clicking https://dsl.memberclicks.net/20240114cle.

Dr. Klumpp looks at the data: What were the major influences on the 2024 Cook County judicial retention vote?

FWIW is once again pleased to present a Guest Post by Albert J. Klumpp, a PhD in public policy analysis with a national reputation for expertise on judicial races. His article, "California's Judicial Retention Elections: Past, Present, and Future," appeared in the December 2024 issue of the Orange County Lawyer Magazine. Dr. Klumpp has been a generous contributor to FWIW for many years.

by Albert J. Klumpp

This past November 20, I provided FWIW with a preliminary analysis of Cook County’s November 5 judicial retention voting, based on preliminary vote totals and available information. Now that final, official vote totals are available, and using better information in certain categories, I’ve completed a full analysis including ward- and township-level results. As promised, here are some of the details.

■ Voter Participation: Roughly 68% of Cook County voters completed the retention ballot. The figure is higher than long-term historical numbers but is the lowest since 2016—indicating that the surge of voter interest in judicial retention that happened in 2018 is fading somewhat, as it typically has done in similar situations in retention jurisdictions. The highest and lowest participation rates:

■ Voter Approval: The baseline approval rate countywide, controlling for all other factors, was 74.8%. This is a typical value based on recent history. Locations with the highest and lowest baselines:

■ Name Cues: The final figures for name-based voting are virtually identical to the preliminary ones: 1.7% for female; 1.0% for Irish; 1.4% for Black. For Hispanic names the analysis produced a figure of 0.4% but it was not statistically significant. All of the Hispanic-majority locations did favor Hispanic names, but the historical pattern countywide is that heavily ethnic names of whatever origin tend to lag very slightly behind other names. Those two factors tend to offset, as they did here. The highest name-based votes for each category:

Notably, nearly all of the highest pro-female numbers came from Hispanic-majority locations. I had not noticed such a thing before and will have to check past results to see if it is a regular occurrence.

■ Bar Associations: The ratings of local bar associations together influenced 18.2% of the vote. Considering that the figure two years ago was 15.0%, and that for the second consecutive election major newspapers did not report bar ratings, this result was unexpectedly high. The analysis also confirms that ratings from the smaller bars were more influential than ever before, providing nearly half of that 18.2% figure. As I explained in my most recent post, the most prominent sources of bar ratings found in mobile-device searches did not limit themselves to the major bars but rather offered voluminous presentations covering all of the bars. The heaviest users of bar ratings:

■ Social Media Sources: The Girl, I Guess voter guide is continuing to grow in influence. Six years ago when it debuted, it captured 3.4% of the retention vote. Four years ago the figure increased to 4.2%, and two years ago it increased again to 5.3%. Last month the figure increased for a third straight time, to 6.1%. The guide was statistically detectable in 41 wards and 26 townships.

The Chicago Votes! young voters guide, which in 2022 incorporated the original “Cheat Sheet” guide first seen in 2020, this time simply recommended a No vote for every judge who was flagged by Injustice Watch for a negative rating or controversy. Usage of the guide, and also of the Injustice Watch information for anyone who employed the same decision strategy, was 2.7%.

The largest figures for each source:

And two final tables showing the combined information use from all sources:

As FWIW readers know, there are other sources of ratings on retention judges besides these. But typically their impact is too small to detect statistically and so I do not attempt to do so. One limited exception is the Fraternal Order of Police ratings. Countywide the FOP ratings were not detectable, but they did have influence in the 11th, 13th, 38th, 41st and 45th Wards. The 41st produced the highest number, 4.3%.

As usual, these figures are statistical estimates with margins of error, but everything cited above (without qualification) is considered highly statistically significant.

I’ll have one final post about this election cycle, to examine campaign spending for judicial vacancies. That one has to wait for the final quarterly reports to be filed by candidates who were in several partisan contests.

Bonnie McGrath remembered

Bonnie McGrath, who passed away unexpectedly just before Christmas (which would have been her 74th birthday), came to the law later in life, having done other things first.

It is not that unusual for lawyers to choose their profession after trying something else for a time. Many lawyers, including a number of judges, have taken up the law after serving as a police officer; one of my many ex-partners worked first as a teacher. After earning degrees in community health education and public health, Bonnie McGrath worked as a telephone installer for a number of years before taking up journalism. She was not licensed as an attorney in Illinois until 1993.

McGrath did not follow a traditional path to the bar.

An obituary posted on the CBS2 website documents some of McGrath's many intersts and, inter alia, links to a tribute posted on Project Onward's Instagram page.

FWIW readers will recall McGrath's several judicial campaigns: She ran countywide in 2010, 2016, and 2020. During that last campaign, McGrath said she was making her sixth run. In addition to the three mentioned here so far, I know McGrath sought an 8th Subcircuit vacancy in 2018. I've somehow missed one, because the only other one I can remember was her countywide run in 1998.

In 1998 McGrath ran as "Bonnie Fitzgerald McGrath" and got roasted for it. Her journalistic contacts and credentials -- including stints with the Chicago Tribune -- did not stop the Tribune from making her the 1998 poster child for all that the Tribune thought wrong about judicial elections.

In those far-off days the Tribune could be counted on doing one, and usually only one, 'news' story in every election cycle, focusing on the real or imagined sins of one particular judicial candidate, which story would then serve as an anchor for the Tribune's biennial scold about Why We Need Merit Selection of Judges. One year, the Tribune singled out a particular judicial candidate because several members of her successful family donated a lot of money to her campaign (she lost, which would have undermined the dire warning of the editorial about money buying judgeships, but the Tribune never noted the irony). In 1998, it was Bonnie's turn, her alleged sin being the attempted exploitation of voter ignorance by adopting "Fitzgerald" as a nickname or middle name just in time for a primary election falling (as it usually does) around the Feast of St. Patrick.

(IIRC, McGrath said she did it on the recommendation of her election lawyer. Who knows? It might even have worked... if the Tribune's Eye of Sauron had not come to focus on her campaign. But that was long ago: Anyone trying a similar tactic today would almost certainly be removed from the ballot. See, here, here, and, most recently, here.)

And why were voters ignorant of the relative qualifications of judicial candidates you may ask? If the Tribune's editors ever asked themselves such a question, they never recognized that the newspaper's policy of running one, and only one, 'news' story during a judicial election cycle, focusing in on only one of many candidates, might be a contributing factor.

But, if McGrath got no special considerations from her fellow journalists, the experience did not sour her on continuing to write, and publish, in the Reader, the Tribune, and elsewhere. In her statement on FWIW concerning her 2020 campaign, McGrath noted that she'd won 25 major journalism awards. She also pointed out, "I won three awards for legal writing from the Chicago Bar Association, and one of my articles was cited in a law review. I did regular columns in the Illinois Bar Journal and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, and have been on the Chicago Bar Association editorial board for 28 years."

McGrath was still a member of the board of editors of the CBA Record at the time of her passing. I first met her, many years back, when I served a much shorter term on that editorial board. I used to link to her blogsite on Chicago Now from the sidebar here on FWIW. When the Tribune folded Chicago Now a couple of years back, McGrath moved to Substack.

In preparing this article I spent a lot of time trying to locate a lengthy piece that McGrath published on Chicago Now concerning why she stopped participating in judicial evaluations. I can't find it. The links to that article that McGrath provided when she commented here or provided a guest post no longer work.

McGrath had substantive and thoughtful arguments about the biases and limitations of bar association judicial evaluations... but adhering to her principles and declining to participate necessarily resulted in her being rated "not recommended" when she made her later runs.

Despite the automatic opposition of the bar associations to her judicial campaigns, Bonnie McGrath continued to participate in bar activities. In addition to the CBA Record, McGrath chaired several CBA Committees over the years, including the Criminal Law and Bench/Bar Relations committees. Some years back, she was also president of the Decalogue Society of Lawyers.

Bonnie was an interesting person, with a wide and varied acquaintance, and a talent for sharing what she saw and what she remembered... like this Substack piece from 2023, "In 1969, I had to listen to 16-year-old Mandy Patinkin sing Broadway tunes in his South Shore living room because his mother made me...." She will be missed.