LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Electorate Should Ignore Judicial Ratings by Business Group
Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, 10/13/1998By Robert A. Clifford
10/13/1998 - Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
To the editor:
"Tort deform" is erupting once again on the front pages of the newspapers, this time in the form of judicial endorsements as the November elections near.
The Illinois Civil Justice League, a partisan group comprising big-business interests, recently announced it found nine Cook County Circuit Court judges "not recommended" for retention. (Tort Reform Group Rates Judge Field, Oct. 2.) This seems particularly shallow as well as brash given that no member of the CJL even interviewed a single judge to make this determination.
Instead, it appears it did so based upon a strictly selfish agenda: how judges fared on the single issue of tort reform. Vowing such retribution at the CJL's annual meeting earlier this year, the organization's leader, Edward Murnane, encourage its big-business members to carry through on their anti-consumer threats in the pocketbook and at the polls.
The ICJL has been operating for years on such threats. Prior to the passage of the tort reform measures in 1995, the ICJL spoke of doomsday threats to the state's economy if massive changes to the law weren't approved. The over-reaching law being declared unconstitutional, and in spite of the ICJL's empty threats, the economy is stronger now than ever.
A group of injury victims are crisscrossing the state this month to educate elected officials on this important issue and to ensure that consumers' rights are safeguarded in the court system. This group from F.A.I.R. (Families Advocating Injury Reduction) have been victimized by negligent doctors, faulty products and drunken drivers. And they are being victimized again - - this time by the ICJL and GOP gubernatorial hopeful George Ryan.
He has been pandering to the ICJL, appearing as its keynote speaker in July, where he promised to sign another tort reform measure should it hit his desk as governor.
In the next breath, though, he boasts of the healthy economic climate in the State of Illinois. Echoing Gov. Jim Edgar's State of the State address in January where he called Illinois a national leader in the economic recovery, Ryan talked to job creation here being the second-largest in the country, exports at four times the rate of growth during the last decade and unemployment at record lows.
It's difficult to see any connection between the current status of the economy and consumer protections in the civil justice system. And apparently neither do many elected officials. It was recently reported in a study conducted by the Rockford Register Star that at least 26 northern Illinois local governments are using unspent taxes that were collected for paying potential tort lawsuits for other purposes - - from rebuilding a running track to paying crossing guards.
The litigation explosion with runaway verdicts has never been anything more than a myth.
Nor are runaway insurance rates materializing as the ICJL doomsayers predicted. In fact, the nation's largest auto insurer - - Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm - - this year cut insurance premiums in the state by an average of 6.4 percent.
Big business convinced the Republican-controlled legislature in 1995 that changes in the civil justice system were necessary if the state were to survive financially. That's sheer nonsense fueled by greed.
And now with tort deform on the horizon again should Republicans be elected next month, what excuse will big business and the ICJL come up with to change the civil justice system this time?
Whatever it is, this time the elected officials shouldn't buy it. Judges should stand up for what they believe in upholding the law and not be intimated by a partisan group like the ICJL. And voters shouldn't buy the ICJL's bill of goods on Nov. 3 either.
"Tort deform" is erupting once again on the front pages of the newspapers, this time in the form of judicial endorsements as the November elections near.
The Illinois Civil Justice League, a partisan group comprising big-business interests, recently announced it found nine Cook County Circuit Court judges "not recommended" for retention. (Tort Reform Group Rates Judge Field, Oct. 2.) This seems particularly shallow as well as brash given that no member of the CJL even interviewed a single judge to make this determination.
Instead, it appears it did so based upon a strictly selfish agenda: how judges fared on the single issue of tort reform. Vowing such retribution at the CJL's annual meeting earlier this year, the organization's leader, Edward Murnane, encourage its big-business members to carry through on their anti-consumer threats in the pocketbook and at the polls.
The ICJL has been operating for years on such threats. Prior to the passage of the tort reform measures in 1995, the ICJL spoke of doomsday threats to the state's economy if massive changes to the law weren't approved. The over-reaching law being declared unconstitutional, and in spite of the ICJL's empty threats, the economy is stronger now than ever.
A group of injury victims are crisscrossing the state this month to educate elected officials on this important issue and to ensure that consumers' rights are safeguarded in the court system. This group from F.A.I.R. (Families Advocating Injury Reduction) have been victimized by negligent doctors, faulty products and drunken drivers. And they are being victimized again - - this time by the ICJL and GOP gubernatorial hopeful George Ryan.
He has been pandering to the ICJL, appearing as its keynote speaker in July, where he promised to sign another tort reform measure should it hit his desk as governor.
In the next breath, though, he boasts of the healthy economic climate in the State of Illinois. Echoing Gov. Jim Edgar's State of the State address in January where he called Illinois a national leader in the economic recovery, Ryan talked to job creation here being the second-largest in the country, exports at four times the rate of growth during the last decade and unemployment at record lows.
It's difficult to see any connection between the current status of the economy and consumer protections in the civil justice system. And apparently neither do many elected officials. It was recently reported in a study conducted by the Rockford Register Star that at least 26 northern Illinois local governments are using unspent taxes that were collected for paying potential tort lawsuits for other purposes - - from rebuilding a running track to paying crossing guards.
The litigation explosion with runaway verdicts has never been anything more than a myth.
Nor are runaway insurance rates materializing as the ICJL doomsayers predicted. In fact, the nation's largest auto insurer - - Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm - - this year cut insurance premiums in the state by an average of 6.4 percent.
Big business convinced the Republican-controlled legislature in 1995 that changes in the civil justice system were necessary if the state were to survive financially. That's sheer nonsense fueled by greed.
And now with tort deform on the horizon again should Republicans be elected next month, what excuse will big business and the ICJL come up with to change the civil justice system this time?
Whatever it is, this time the elected officials shouldn't buy it. Judges should stand up for what they believe in upholding the law and not be intimated by a partisan group like the ICJL. And voters shouldn't buy the ICJL's bill of goods on Nov. 3 either.
