July 3, 2024
LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD MEN? NOT COOK COUNTY'S DEMOCRATS
Back in the day, long before identity politics, woke-ism and gender obsession, the U.S. Marines’ recruitment slogan was “We’re looking for a few good men.” Nowadays it would be “looking for a few human-persons of indeterminate gender with a pulse.”
But the Cook County Democrats cling to the Marines’ tradition – or sort of. When it comes to slating candidates for countywide offices, particularly judgeships, they are looking for as FEW MEN AS POSSIBLE. Or, more specifically, for as few straight White me as possible. Of the 16 judicial contests on the March 19 ballot a White man was slated for — and won – two, and one of them was LGBTQ.
There are three things to remember about Lady Justice: She is not blind, she can do arithmetic and she is not a Republican. And the sum total of judicial math in Cook County is a debit for straight White men, which has now grown to include Latino men. Whites need not apply.
On March 19 there were 16 judicial races on the Democratic primary ballot, one for the IL Supreme Court, four for the county Appellate Court, 11 countywide for the Circuit Court and 20 in the 20 subcircuits (see chart). And it is safe to make the following generalizations:
First, if it is two men against one woman, the woman wins. That didn’t occur this year. If it is woman-versus-woman, the minority woman or the most Far Left woman wins. That did occur in the Appellate Court contest for the Cunningham vacancy where appointed slated Black incumbent Cynthia Cobbs easily beat White Circuit Court judge Carolyn Gallagher with 61.7 percent. If it is a slated White woman against a Black man, the woman usually wins – like in the Appellate race for the Delort vacancy, where the slated White Celia Louise Gamrath crushed Black challenger Leonard Murray with 72.3 percent.
Second, if it is two or more women against a man, the man wins. That didn’t happen this cycle. Female lawyers/candidates understand this reality. They don’t file against another woman, only against men. In fact, there was a 2024 South Side slate which filed against the 2 slated White men, Ed Underhill and Neil Cohen. Both Wende Williams and Lori Ann Roper lost badly, getting 32.4 and 43.2 percent, respectively.
Third, if it is a Latina against anybody else, the Latina usually wins. Unless it’s a mega-wealthy Greek-American heiress like Mariyana Spyropoulos who dumped a whole lot of money into the coffers of suburban and Chicago township and ward committeepersons and got slated in 2023 for Clerk of Circuit Court, dumping Iris Martinez. Money matters. A rich White woman usually eclipses a Latina woman in elections. But if it is Latino man against a minority Black, the outcome is more problematic.
In 2020 Jesse Reyes, then an Appellate Court justice of Mexican-American descent, ran for the IL Supreme Court. The High Court has 7 justices, 3 elected from Cook County only and 4 from Downstate. The Democrats have a 5D-2R majority, meaning that tort award caps won’t happen, nor any abortion restrictions or redistricting complaints.
The Court has 3 Black justices, 2 from Cook County’s 1st District and the third a conservative Republican Black woman from Downstate. Five of the7 justices are female. Reyes ran for an ISC vacancy in 2020 but lost to appointed justice P. Scott Neville, finishing second. The Democrats, being the WIMPs – an acronym for Woke/Identity/Minority Party – promised Reyes he would get the next vacancy. The “first Latino on the Court.” They lied. What else is new? When justice Ann Burke retired in 2022 the Court appointed Appellate justice Cunningham to the vacancy, by-passing Reyes.
Reyes ran in 2024 and got crushed by Cunningham, losing Chicago 229,639-78,541 and the suburbs 151,546-46,438. Overall, Reyes got a puny 24 percent. Maybe when White 1st District justice Mary Jane Theis retires later this decade Reyes will get the appointment/slating. Don’t hold your breath. Another White woman will surely take her place.
But 2 slated Latino men did win Circuit judgeships: Pablo deCastro beat a Black woman with 60.2 percent, and James Murphy-Aguilo was unopposed.
Fourth, if a gay man runs, even against a woman, he wins. Underhill, the 2024 slated LGBTQ candidate and one of the 2 slated White men among the 11 countywide candidates, did manage to beat a Black female, Roper, getting 56.8 percent.
Fifth, if it is the slated versus non-slated (especially female) candidate, the non-slated wins only half the time. Not this year. The CCDP slate won 16 of 16 judgeship slots but ignominiously lost with Clayton Harris for state’s attorney.
REMEMBER THIS: There are 5 million people in Cook County, and 3 million registered voters, of which 500,000 voted for judge in the March 19 Democratic primary. No Democrat has a Republican opponent, so all nominated are elected. All it took was about 250-300,000 votes to win the primary, or about 10 PERCENT of RVs. That’s how judges are made.
The Democrats’ judge-making is not about the best and the brightest. It’s about identity politics and the balancing of race, gender and sexual orientation, satisfying certain geographical constituencies, and collecting the party’s $45,000 fee for campaign expenses.
But the most important criterion is compliance. Democrats don’t expect every judge to be a puppet. Each runs his or her own courtroom. To get ahead, to get assigned to a particular courtroom or courthouse, to be promoted to a premier division, and to advance to the Appellate Court, and to even get good courtroom staff, a judge needs to go along to get along.
The Illinois legislature, in an under-reported development in 2021, passed a bill which remapped the 4 non-Cook County state Supreme Court districts, the intent being to maintain the Democrats’ 4-3 majority. Democrats gained 2 seats in 2022. It also expanded the number of subcircuits in Cook County from 15 to 20 but reaffirmed the countywide election of Circuit judges, the intent being to get more minorities on the bench.
11th SUBCIRCUIT: Chicago alderman Chris Taliaferro (29th) represents a West Side Black-majority ward, lost his 2022 bid for judge to an Oak Park liberal White woman. “I’m tired of Oak Park dominating” the subcircuit, said alderman Nick Sposato (38th). But it happened again on March 19. Audrey Cosgrove, from Oak Park, beat Kim Przekota, an ASA (assistant state’s ttorney) by 338 votes. Przekota was endorsed by Sposato and state senator Rob Martwick but lost the 38th Ward’s 20 precincts 1,654-1,471, the 45th Ward’s 16 precincts 1,578-1,352, but carried the 41st Ward’s 30 precincts 3,328-2,116. The game-changer was Oak Park, where Cosgrove ran up a 6,987-4,206 win.
10TH SUBCIRCUIT: Judges are supposed to run on their qualifications, not their ideology or feelings. Not Liam Kelly. Off the bat he proclaimed that he was for “equity” under the law, not equality. He was endorsed by congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-9) and made an absurd video, which appeared on cable and his website in which he had a caricature of an old White judge and then of himself in black robes, which he opened to show a T-shirt emblazoned with “Black Lives Matter.”
Kelly was rated unqualified by most bar associations and was defeated by former ASA James Murphy-Aguilu 14,093-10,685. Murphy won the 39th Ward 3,427-2,339, even though Kelly was endorsed by state senator Ram Villivalam (D-10), plus the 45th, 41st and 50th wards. This was a rare man vs. man race in county politics.
Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com
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