ABOUT ILLINOIS JUDGES.NET: THE ICJL'S OBJECTIVE

The Illinois Civil Justice League initiated its first judicial candidates' website during the 2000 judicial campaign and has repeated -- and expanded -- the site in each election cycle since.  The name has changed from Judges2000 to Judges2002 to Judges2004, and finally to IllinoisJudges.net, which we assume will remain the title for years to come.

Our purpose is to help Illinois voters learn about judges and candidates for judicial offices. Do the voters want and need that information? We think so. More than 60,000 visits were recorded during the five-day period before, and including, Election Day in 2002.

In an election year such as 2002, when all six statewide offices in Illinois were on the ballot, and there was an election for the United State Senate, and all legislative and congressional offices were at stake, the news media and others generally overlooked judicial elections. The field is not as large in 2006 (no U.S. Senate, not all Illinois Senators) but it is still large and undoubtedly, most of the attention will be focused at the highest offices.  Consider the attention already being paid to a rather large field of gubernatorial candidates.

Yet the judges we elect in Illinois -- and we elect more judges than members of the executive and legislative branches of government combined -- have longer terms and more power than all the other offices. They can nullify what the other branches have done.

The Illinois Civil Justice League does not attempt to conceal its agenda. The ICJL is a coalition of interests in Illinois, including taxpayers, consumers, small businesses, lawyers, doctors, local governments, big businesses, not-for-profit organizations and individual citizens. They have joined together to fight what we -- and they --  believe are abuses in our civil justice system.

We think there are too many lawsuits and we think the litigation explosion is costly to all Illinois citizens. We do not want to limit the rights of any potential victim of wrong-doing (all of us fall in that category) but we don't think the system is intended to make anyone rich.

So while we are not hiding from our philosophy, we believe Illinois voters should learn as much as possible about judges and judicial candidates and thus we include as much information about ALL candidates for the Illinois Supreme and Appellate Courts as is possible, and as much information about candidates for circuit court seats as is reasonably possible.

The candidates for the Supreme and Appellate Courts in 2002 were asked questions and their responses, if they agreed to participate, were included verbatim. The same was true in 2004 and both candidates for the Supreme Court in the Fifth District -- yes, that included Democratic candidate Gordon Maag -- who DID cooperate and we DID include his statements unedited (except for some typos which he agreed to allow us to correct).

In some recent elections, some candidates -- of both political parties -- refused to participate. Their refusal was stated and, if appropriate, explained.

The ICJL's endorsements, made through our Political Action Committee, were included, but we also included the endorsements of newspapers, the ratings of bar associations and other groups. We included other evaluations, even if they did not agree with our position. We offered candidates an opportunity to rebut our endorsement

We also included links to the websites of all candidates, if they provided us with links, so that voters could form their own opinions.

Our plans for 2006 are the same.  We already have contacted all sitting judges who were eligible for retention and we will be contacting all candidates who have filed nominating petitions for judicial offices next week, after the filing period concludes.  We will invite them to participate.  If they fail to respond, we will invite them a second time.  If they refuse to respond, we will note that.

This site will expand as we progress through the election cycle.  It WILL be the most comprehensive source of information about judges and judicial candidates in Illinois in 2006.