Cook County Subcircuit Primaries Competitive, Crowded

With 75 total candidates on the Cook County subcircuit ballots on February 5th, there are almost as many subcircuit candidates as there are circuit judge candidates in all of the other 101 counties in Illinois. Most Cook County voters would be unable to tell you there are fifteen total subcircuits and – most likely – many in the legal profession in Cook County would have a hard time describing the obscure subcircuit boundary lines (shown below).

As Manuel Galvan stated in a January 1993 article in Illinois Issues magazine, critiquing the first election under the new subcircuit plan:

Proponents of subcircuit districts for Cook County judges promised that the new system would put more minorities on the bench and remove politics from the selection process. Detractors warned of more politics and less qualified judges. Both sides were right — and wrong.

Fifteen years later, the hallmark of this election cycle’s subcircuit races is “competition.” The Fifteenth Subcircuit vacancy has eleven candidates (nine Democrats and two Republicans). The Eighth Subcircuit has an eight-way Democrat primary. Vacancies in the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh and Tenth subcircuits each have five-way Democrat primaries.

As always, the Illinois Civil Justice League encourages its readers to check out the full judicial profiles in these competitions, including links to biographies and answers to the ICJL questionnaire, all available at www.IllinoisJudges.net.

(Editor’s Note: Candidates for the Cook County appellate and countywide circuit races
were featured last week and downstate primary races will be featured next week.)

First Subcircuit: Three Democrat candidates vie for the Turkington vacancy in the subcircuit that borders Indiana. The candidate appointed to the vacancy is Judge Laguina Clay-Clark, who previously served as a trial judge with the Illinois Court of Claims. Clay-Clark has two opponents. Donna Cooper is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Illinois National Guard – the first African American JAG to serve in the our state’s National Guard. She currently is an attorney with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Both Clay-Clark and Cooper received qualified ratings from the ISBA and CBA. A third candidate, Zach Braden III, practices criminal defense, personal injury and police brutality law.

Follow Link To Nine More Subcircuits And 68 More Candidates.