Appeals Court Judge Judy Cates has long benefitted from generous donations from lawyers and law firms far and wide. Now that she’s running for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court, the generosity is snowballing.
St. Louis attorney John Driscoll donated $11,600 to Cates’s campaign in January and another $10,000 in August, furnished her with a leased vehicle, and filed a class action suit against David Overstreet, accusing her Republican opponent in the looming election of violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending unsolicited text messages to potential voters.
Chicago lawyer Timothy Tomasik’s firm donated $5,000 to “Republicans for Judge Judy” just months after Cates overturned a lower court ruling and decided in the firm’s favor in a suit against St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
Is Tomasik a Republican? Maybe in name only. RINO or not, he votes Democrat and supports Democrat candidates, and his firm donated $30,000 for retention of Supreme Court Justice James Kilbride, $21,500 for House Speaker Mike Madigan, and $37,900 to the state Democratic Party and its committees.
How many Republicans have contributed to Republicans for Judge Judy? None, it seems. At least, not as of mid-October. For a committee established in May and now nearly six months old, that’s not an impressive show of support. Kind of like a Joe Biden rally.
The ironically named “Clean Courts Committee” is also supporting Judge Judy, its mud-slinging efforts against Overstreet financed by more than $400,000 in donations from trial lawyers and their firms, including $65,200 contributions from Chicago-based Robert Clifford’s firm, Cooney and Conway, and Power Rogers; Salvi, Schostok, and Pritchard of Waukegan; Tom Keefe’s firm in Swansea, and John Simmons’s firm in Alton. Plus twenty grand from Gori in Edwardsville and ten grand from McNabola in Chicago.
George Soros’ son and daughter-in-law both donated $500 to Judge Judy’s campaign, a mere pittance compared to the $400,000+ that Big Daddy contributed to the election of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in 2016, not to mention the $70 million he’s invested in the 2020 elections.