MOUNT VERNON – Justice Judy Cates, whose noisy Supreme Court campaign ended in defeat by 26 points two years ago, quietly seeks retention as Fifth District Appellate Court judge.
She hasn’t formed a campaign committee and can’t raise money without one.
She needs 60 percent approval to keep her job.
Framers of the Illinois Constitution adopted retention as a compromise between appointment of judges and partisan campaigns. They decided judicial candidates would run on a partisan basis but would seek further terms without a party label and without an opponent.
Some delegates wanted to require 50 percent approval and some wanted to require two thirds, so they agreed on 60 percent.
Circuit judges stand for retention every six years, and appellate court judges every 10 years, unless they filled seats that opened in the course of a term.
Cates won a 10-year term to a vacant Fifth District seat in 2012, defeating Stephen McGlynn, now a federal judge, by a 52-48 percent margin.
In 2020, after Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier announced his retirement, Cates ran for the seat as a Democrat.
Fifth District appellate judge David Overstreet ran as a Republican.
Chicago area trial lawyers provided the strongest support for Cates:
Power Rogers of Chicago gave her $23,200, and Joseph Power added $1,000.
Meyers and Flowers of St. Charles gave her $23,200.
Salvi Schostok of Waukegan gave her $11,600 and Patrick Salvi gave her $5,000.
Cooney and Conway of Chicago gave her $11,600 and John Cooney gave her $4,000.
She received $11,600 each from the Clifford firm, the Cavanagh firm, the Phillips firm, Hurley McKenna, and Smith Lacien, all of Chicago.
Dudley and Lake of Libertyville also gave her $11,600.
Laird Ozmon of Joliet gave her $10,000 and Jack Beam of Chicago gave her $9,000.
Steven Levin of Chicago and John Perconti of Burr Ridge each gave her $5,800.
The Tomasik Kotin firm, the Horwitz firm, Motherway and Napleton, Philip Corboy, and Keith Hebeisen, all of Chicago, gave her $5,000.
Coplan and Crane of Oak Park also gave her $5,000.
Howard Ankin, the Keating firm, the Duncan firm, Kathy Byrne, and Colin Dunn, all of Chicago, each gave her $4,000.
Lawyers active in St. Clair and Madison counties also supported Cates.
Korein Tillery gave her $22,800, Stephen Tillery and Christine Moody each gave her $5,800, and Michael Korein gave her $5,000.
John Driscoll’s firm gave her $21,600.
Bruce N. Cook’s firm gave her $10,600, he gave her $2,000, and Greg Shevlin gave her $4,000.
Becker Hoerner gave her $12,100.
Tom Keefe’s firm, Walton Telken, Weilmuenster Keck, the Gori firm, the Holland firm, and the Onder firm each gave her $11,600.
John Simmons’s firm gave her $10,000.
Courtney Clark of Belleville gave her $5,000.
Her son David Cates gave her $10,800, his firm gave her $11,600, and Ryan Mahoney, his partner at the time, gave her $5,800.
She paid $421,000 for television and social media to spread a message that Overstreet released a child rape suspect.
The author of the decision, Cates' colleague Justice Milton Wharton, posted a statement that the court did not release the suspect. He wrote that it was his decision to grant the suspect a new trial, but it did not release him from charges.
He wrote that he was in contact with Cates for months and she never objected.
"I take the strongest personal and professional offense to the campaign of distortion waged by Justice Judy Cates and some of her supporters against my ruling for, in my opinion, an attempted political advantage," Wharton wrote. "This decision was issued by me months ago and I have been in repeated contact with her, yet she never voiced any objection to me or even mentioned this case until recently in her campaign?"
In September 2020, attorney Driscoll filed a proposed class action in St. Clair County circuit court to shut down Overstreet’s campaign telephone operation.
He sought damages between $500 and $1,500 for each violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.
Overstreet removed the case to U.S. district court as a federal matter.
Driscoll filed an emergency motion to remand it to St. Clair County, and Magistrate Judge Reona Daly denied it on Oct. 28.
She set a deadline for filing a civil complaint, but Driscoll dismissed the case.
Overstreet won by 388,129 to 232,722, or 63 percent to 37.
Since then state legislators added Champaign, Macon, Vermilion, Moultrie, Piatt, DeWitt, Coles, Edgar and Douglas counties to the Fifth District.