When Illinois Supreme Court Justice Thomas Kilbride first ran for a seat on the high court in 2000, the state Democrat Party (owned and operated by House Speaker-for-Life Mike Madigan) contributed nearly $700,000 to his campaign.
For Kilbride’s first retention campaign in 2010, the manna from Mike nearly doubled, and it was a good investment for the Madigan mob. Six years later, Kilbride and three of his colleagues on the bench blocked a ballot initiative that would have authorized a citizen commission to redraw legislative district maps.
That was a serious threat to Mike’s dictatorial control of the legislature. Mike no like. Threat quashed. Mike happy.
This year, Kilbride is running for his second retention, but the manna from Mike is not materializing. Yet.
Why is that? Has Kilbride nothing more to offer the boss? Has the boss more serious things to worry about, like defending himself from federal prosecution?
That’s between Madigan and Kilbride. We don’t really care what the explanation may be for the apparent falling-out between them, because, as far as we’re concerned, they both need to go.
We’ve already detailed the questionable decisions Kilbride has made as a judge. Read our piece and decide for yourself whether or not he deserves to be retained in November, or whether he should ever have been on the bench in the first place.
Among the dissenting justices in the 2016 ballot initiative decision was Robert Thomas, who opined that “there is a palpable sense of frustration by voters of every political affiliation that self-perpetuating institutions of government have excluded them from meaningful participation in the political process.”
Thomas emphasized that our state constitution is “meant to prevent tyranny, not to enshrine it.”
Ha ha. Good one, right? Since when has any politician in Illinois given more than lip service to our state constitution, much less the U.S. Constitution? But let’s not get too cynical. Thomas is right. We need to insist on a proper interpretation of our constitution. It protects our freedoms, and needs our protection.