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Judicial
Campaign Finance Reform Project The Judicial Campaign Finance Reform Project is a collaborative effort of the Chicago Appleseed Fund For Justice with the assistance of the Chicago Council of Lawyers. Funded by The Joyce Foundation, the Principal Investigator is Lee Epstein, the Mallinckrodt Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Law at Washington University. Heading the Advisory Board is John P. Heinz, Senior Researcher at the American Bar Foundation and the Owen L. Coon Professor of Law at the Northwestern University School of Law. The project seeks to arrive at a better understanding of the determinants of electoral success in Cook County judicial races, focusing in particular on the relative influences of campaign financing practices and the role of institutional selection and appointment processes. The ultimate goal of this project is to move beyond the heated rhetoric and anecdotal evidence that form the backbone behind common assumptions of the role of money in judicial elections by providing a scientifically informed analysis that is accessible to researchers, policymakers, and advocates alike. The final analysis will be derived from a research methodology that incorporates quantitative data analysis and focused survey interviews pertaining to issues and items that involve judicial elections in Cook County, the largest unified circuit court in the nation. The subject of money in state judicial elections and the potential ethical improprieties accompanying judicial fundraising practices generates considerable debate. Research on the topic of money and judicial elections generally focuses on the extent to which money does or does not play a role in determining judicial elections, which interest groups are involved in campaign funding, and the ways in which judicial behavior can be swayed by "interested" money. One major problem is that the issues in judicial elections are assumed to naturally parallel legislative elections, in spite of major differences in the political culture, frequency and type of elections, agenda-setting power of candidates, initial appointments of judges, and ethic constraints on campaign speech that affect judicial elections in vastly disparate ways from, for example, congressional elections. Changes offered by reformers in the judicial area are often made without regard to the significant differences between the legislative and judicial branches. Moreover, reforms are often based on research done involving elections at the level of state supreme courts or other state courts of last resort. Yet most citizens encounter the legal system at the local level where judicial campaigns involve different issues. Our project focuses on both the trial and appellate courts, including quantitative data analysis using information about every judicial candidate in Cook County between 1988 and 2000. In addition, the most common failing in the rhetoric of money and elections is the narrow focus that fails to account for the numerous factors that may impact a given judicial election scheme. A critical component of our study, then, is the interview process that highlights particular issues that are germane to electing judges, including, e.g., how candidates are slated by political parties and the impact that this slating has on judicial campaigns and on the ultimate outcomes of the elections. A number of these issues are not easily captured by quantitative analyses. If you have opinions or information you wish to share regarding the way judges are elected in Illinois, please contact:
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