Suburban voters put in picks for Illinois Supreme Court seat long held by GOP

After polls close Tuesday, voters in Lake, McHenry, Kane, Kendall and DeKalb counties will be one step closer to choosing the next Illinois Supreme Court justice. Four Republicans and three Democrats sought their party’s nomination for a seat on the state’s highest court.

The winners of the Democratic and Republican primaries will face off in November for the 2nd Judicial District seat previously held by former Chicago Bears kicker Bob Thomas, a Republican justice who was on the state’s highest court for nearly two decades.

The second district has consistently elected Republican candidates since the 1960s, but the Democratic-controlled Illinois legislature recently redrew the electoral map. Voters from the northwest part of the state were shifted from the second district to the sprawling fourth district, which now stretches from Jo Daviess County to Jersey County, just north of St. Louis.

[ [Live results] 2022 primary election in Illinois ]

Lake, McHenry, DeKalb, Kane and Kendall counties remain in the second district, while DuPage County was moved to the third district.

The Republican primary was a four-way race between an appellate judge, two circuit judges and a former Lake County sheriff.

Second District Appellate Judge Susan Hutchinson and Lake County Circuit Judge Daniel Shanes were awarded “highly recommended” ratings from the Illinois State Bar Association. John Noverini, a circuit court judge in Kane County, and former Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran were rated “not recommended.” Noverini received the rating automatically after declining to participate in the bar group’s evaluation.

Citadel CEO Ken Griffin donated $6.25 million this year to Citizens for Judicial Fairness, a conservative independent expenditure committee that spent more than $170,000 on TV ads in support of Shanes. The group spent roughly $50,000 to oppose Curran’s bid for the party nomination. The three-term Lake County sheriff ran unsuccessfully against Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin in 2020, scoring almost 40% of the vote statewide.

Of the three contenders in the Democratic primary, only Lake County Associate Judge Elizabeth “Liz” Rochford was rated “highly recommended” by the Illinois State Bar Association. The group rated Kane County Circuit Judge Renè Cruz “recommended” and sitting Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering “not recommended.”

Rochford and Rotering both have ties to powerful Democrats in the state. Allies of former Illinois Speaker Michael Madigan helped Rotering gather petitions in her unsuccessful 2018 bid for Illinois attorney general, and Rochford has donated money over the years to Chicago Ald. Edward Burke, now under federal indictment. Rochford’s campaign committee far out-fundraised her Democratic rivals.

The race almost had three fewer candidates. Rotering, Hutchinson and Curran were temporarily booted from the ballot over a snafu involving the number of signatures required to run in the newly redrawn district. A Cook County Circuit Court judge reinstated all three candidates last month.

Illinois Supreme Court justices often, though not always, have prior experience on the bench before ascending to the state’s highest court. Each of the court’s current seven members served at the circuit or appellate court level.

In the state’s 3rd Judicial District, Michael J. Burke and Mary Kay O’Brien each faced uncontested primaries. The Democratic candidate, O’Brien, is an appellate court judge in the third district and served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1996 to 2003, when she was appointed to the appellate court.

Burke, the Republican candidate, is sitting on the Illinois Supreme Court after the court appointed him to fill the vacant second district seat left by Thomas. But the legislative redistricting shifted his home seat, so he is now running to fill the third district vacancy created by the 2020 failed retention bid of former Justice Thomas Kilbride.

In 2020, Citizens for Judicial Fairness spent millions in an effort to unseat Kilbride as he sought the 60% “yes” votes needed to maintain his seat on the bench. The group linked him unfavorably to Madigan. The court appointed Robert L. Carter, from Ottawa, to fill Kilbride’s seat in 2020, but Carter said at the time that he would not run in this election.

If Republicans win both Supreme Court races in November, the court would have a Republican majority for the first time in decades.

ehoerner@chicagotribune.com