ST. LOUIS — An Illinois Supreme Court justice targeted for ouster by plaintiffs' attorneys who spent more than $1 million publicly characterizing him as partial to corporate interests appears to have retained his seat, which he won a decade ago in a race that set national spending records.
Just from these two paragraphs we can tell a few things about how Supreme Court Justices are keep their seats in Illinois. While we cannot tell how they are actually selected (whether the governor does the selecting or some kind of committee), we can tell that each Justice must face a retention vote, and in order to survive the vote the judge must obtain a super majority of 60% of the vote. We can also tell that Justices on the Illinois Supreme Court apparently represent only a part of the state. This likely is meant to ensure that the Court is made up of Justices from throughout the entire state.With more than 99 percent of Tuesday's votes counted, Lloyd Karmeier finished less than 1 percentage point above the 60 percent threshold he needed for retention. Several of the 37 southernmost Illinois counties making up Karmeier's district still were counting absentee and provisional ballots Wednesday.
To review: some judges must face retention votes when their term expires. A retention vote is nothing more than having the name of the judge on the ballot with a "Yes" or "No" answer to the question of whether the judge should be retained. In Illinois a judge must get 60% yes votes in order to keep his or her seat. Remember, not all retention votes run this way. Each state can have their own system.
