Indeed, rather than make the expectant winners wait all the way until December, the Supreme Court appointed 13 of the unopposed candidates to the vacancies to which they will be elected next month. I assume you learned in high school Civics class that we have a two-party system in this country, but that's really not the case in Cook County judicial elections. In fact, there are no Republican candidates for any 2026 Cook County judicial vacancy. Unless you voted in the Democratic primary this past March, you have, and will have, no say in who gets elected to the bench here this year.
Technically, there's an election. But there is only one candidate for each vacancy.
Very Soviet.
But do not despair, early voter: You can still vote on the retention ballot. Circuit Court judges are elected to six-year terms; Appellate and Supreme Court justices are elected to 10-year terms. In order to remain in office when their terms expire, jurists must secure a "yes" vote from more than 60% of voters (60% +1, to be technical) on the question of whether Judge So-and-so shall remain in office. The retention ballot is just a straight up or down vote on whether each of these 59 Circuit Court judges (and one Appellate Court justice) should keep their jobs.
Lots of folks have all sorts of opinions on whether each of these judges should be retained. The Chicago Bar Association, for example, says that all 60 jurists on the retention ballot are worthy of retention. The separate Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening (a coalition of 13 different bar groups) agrees that most of these jurists are qualified for retention, but their "grids" contain some exceptions.
On the other hand, the influential Second City Cop blog encourages a "no" vote on every single retention judge. Just this morning, in fact, SCC said, "Regular readers know that we recommend against ever voting 'yes' on a single judge, if only to send a message to the Machine that we're getting damn sick and tired of their catering to the criminal element."
You, as a civic-minded early voter, would like to do the right thing -- but how can one decide what is right in the face of such diametrically opposed recommendations?
FWIW does not make endorsements. However, when it comes to the retention ballot, FWIW has always suggested that the default vote for judges on the retention ballot should be "yes." I usually do a separate post on this topic, and I may do so this year, too, but let me give you the Readers Digest condensed version of my position here: When you watch a baseball game, do you know the name of the home plate umpire? Certainly the announcers will mention the name at the outset -- but, if the umpire calls a good game, chances are good that you won't remember the ump's name at all.
Think of that lengthy list of retention judges as similar to a list of MLB umpires: If no one's name jumps off that list, like Ángel Hernández or Cowboy Joe West might have once jumped off a list of MLB umpires, that's probably a good thing. It strongly supports the notion that the judges were not particularly controversial, that they fulfilled their duties without calling attention to themselves. Put another way, if lots of people know a particular judge's name, like a lot of even casual baseball fans might have recognized Ángel Hernández's just a couple years back, it might mean that the judge has inserted him- or herself into a case, or series of cases, whether because of personality, or argumentative behavior, or a ruling or series of rulings that defied precedent, or which were summarily rejected on appeal.
For judges on the retention ballot, no news may well be good news.
For those early voters who want more information about retention judges before deciding how to vote, there are a number of resources.
The CBA and Alliance ratings, already mentioned, are an important resource. These bar ratings do not materialize out of thin air. Every judge who participates in either the CBA or Alliance evaluation process has to complete an extensive questionnaire for review by each of the bar groups' Judicial Evaluation Committees. In addition, the JECs will interview attorneys who have appeared before each judge, review a judge's appellate decisions, and conduct an interview of each participating judge. However, for judges on the retention ballot, all of the bar groups distill all this information down to their own 'yes' or 'no' ratings. Thus, voters must essentially take the bar groups' recommendations on faith, but, in so doing, they should feel confident that there really is a lot of time and effort that goes into these.
The retention judges also have their own website. There, voters can see what the retention judges have to say for themselves. Be advised, however, that the site may trigger your antivirus program -- it triggers mine -- and, like me, you may not be able to use the site. On the other hand, I know for a fact that some FWIW readers have been able to access the site without difficulty. You will have to see for yourself.
Many voters find the Check Your Judges Guide, published by Injustice Watch to be helpful. Injustice Watch reports the bar ratings for each retention candidate, but supplements that with its own reporting about each judge -- and Injustice Watch has the resources to break some important stories that bar groups could not discover on their own (the stories about the residency questions concerning a couple of judges in the last retention cycle, for example).
CWB Chicago provides daily coverage of the criminal courts. It has begun a series of "brief biographies, background information, and links to relevant cases involving Cook County judges up for retention during the current cycle who handle criminal matters in CWB Chicago’s coverage area." So far, only one installment has appeared; others are expected soon.
But be forewarned: Neither Injustice Watch nor CWB Chicago are offering endorsements. So you still have to make up your own minds.
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