Another state supreme court is under threat from wave of dark money washing over this election cycle, this time in Illinois, one of the last remaining options for abortion care in the middle of the country. The state’s richest person, hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, has coughed up more than $10 million in the past two years to Citizens for Judicial Fairness (CFJ) to steal the state’s supreme court.
CFJ is, of course, yet another part of the web of malign influence spun by Leonard Leo, the former Federalist Society president who bought the U.S. Supreme Court. CJF is an outgrowth of the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) and Leo’s Judicial Crisis Network (JCN). The RSLC launched the “Judicial Fairness Initiative” in 2014, and from that came the astroturf group that’s CJF. They took down Democratic Supreme Court Justice Tom Kilbride in 2020 with Griffin’s money, making him the first Illinois Supreme Court justice to lose a retention vote ever.
They’re back at it now. Two of the state’s seven seats are open this cycle, giving the Republicans the opportunity to flip the court. Last year, the legislature passed a law to restrict donations to judicial candidates to in-state residents and to limit the amount a single donor could give to an independent expenditure committee—i.e. CJF—to $500,000. Dark money groups sued the state, and earlier this month U.S. District Judge John Tharp issued an injunction against its enforcement. The end result is more millions flooding in.
Help in the fight against the billionaires. If you’ve got $10 or $100 to spare, you can help keep democracy alive in the state supreme courts.
Campaign Action
“If it flips, it will be a big deal,” Evan McKenzie, a lawyer and head of the political science department at University of Illinois Chicago, told Bloomberg. “That would shock people because everyone perceives us a blue state.”
“These races will cause really massive implications for the people of Illinois, in particular what I mean by that is how it affects the reproductive rights, our union rights, our public safety,” said Lisa Hernandez, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Illinois.
It’s not something Illinois voters have had to spend a lot of time worrying about until now. It’s true in state after state as the dark money groups have turned their sights on these courts. In the 2017-2018 cycle, the Brennan Center found that special interest groups accounted for 27% of all state supreme court election spending. The RSLC’s Judicial Fairness Initiative spent $4.1 million that cycle in three states.
That spending is going to be absolutely dwarfed this year, with just one group—Fair Courts America—planning to send $22.5 million on judicial races in seven states. That’s as well as the at least $5 million the RSLC is going to be spending, $2 million of it in Ohio alone.
They promised they’d spend “more on state court races in 2022 than ever before.”
It’s abortion. It’s labor laws. It’s the next election at stake. This is where Republicans are now. If they can’t change the law, they’ll control the people who interpret the law. If they can’t win an election, they’ll change how the votes are counted.
We can’t match their millions, but we can fight back and help the slate of fantastic candidates Daily Kos has endorsed for the supreme courts in Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina.
It doesn’t take millions to win these races—it can be done with the kind of money Daily Kos can raise, so don’t be discouraged to see these millions in the most-shadowy dark money there is being poured in.
If you’re in Illinois, find one of the great GOTV opportunities Daily Kos has lined up for this election, and help any way you can.
Here's how we stop the GOP from criminalizing abortion and stealing elections: Donate $5 to to support Democratic candidates for attorney general in five key states.
RELATED STORIES:
Dark money swoops in to steal state supreme courts for the right. Help us defend them
The biggest, most corrupt dark money deal ever could bail Republicans out in 2022
Prominent Big Lie grifter is behind huge dark money injection into state supreme court races