Here comes The Judge?
By Scott Jacobs
The Week Behind
Published March 3, 2006The brochure arrived in that blizzard of political junk mail that seems to come around these days. "This is the worst political advertising I've ever seen," I remember thinking at the time. But since all the candidates had not yet weighed in, I pretty much forgot about it until I ran across a story in The Tribune the other day about bar association endorsements in the Cook County Circuit Court races.
Buried in the middle pages of the Metro section, The Trib reported that The Chicago Council of Lawyers, and nine other bar associations, have issued their evaluations of the judicial candidates. The evaluations, by candidate and race, can all be seen together on a new non-partisan website funded by the Joyce Foundation called Vote for Judges.
Of the 73 candidates running for vacant seats in 23 circuit court districts, The Council of Lawyers found 39 were unqualified. Some were deemed too young. Others lacked trial experience. Eighteen were not recommended because they didn't even bother to submit their credentials for evaluation.
Judges running for office the first time do not run citywide, but in local districts. So I scanned the convenient map provided by Vote for Judges and discovered I the live in sub-district 6 of the Circuit Court, an area that roughly covers Bucktown, Wicker Park, Logan Square, Ukranian Village, Humboldt Park and parts of Ravenswood.
I clicked my way down to the three candidates running in my district and, sure enough, there was my man, Edward J. Lechowicz, batting exactly 0-for-10 in the qualified category.
I'm not sure what first caught my eye in the Lechowicz campaign brochure. It obviously cost some money. Four full size pages of rich, gaudy red and white and blue with a flag and gavel on the front, pictures of law books on the back and faint calligraphy underneath spelling out Honesty, Leadership and Integrity like they'd been lifted right off the Constitutional parchment.
But when I took a closer look at the small photo on the cover, I could see it was a picture of Lechowicz taking the Boy Scout pledge in eighth grade. And inside there were more pictures of his graduation from grade school (Martyr Grammar) and high school (St. Stanislaus Bishop.) There was one snapped with his father at his law school graduation. (NIU-De Kalb). Another standing behind three Illinois Supreme Court Justices when he was sworn in at the bar in 1998. And still another of him standing behind a podium in what was probably some speech class.
"Why would anybody seriously run for a judgeship on nothing more than pictures of himself as a kid?" I wondered. And then it dawned on me: Ed Lechowicz is not just a kid. He's Ted Lechowicz's kid -- which means he's probably going to win.
To be fair, Ed Lechowicz, 36, is not without credentials. After being admitted to the bar, he worked for two years in the law firm of former Ald. Ed Vrdolyak, then moved on to become a research assistant in the office of the chief judge of the circuit court. In that capacity, he served as a clerk to judges in the probate, chancery and law (but not criminal) divisions where, he told me, he writes orders for judges and "helps them any way I can."
His two opponents, however, have twice as much legal experience as both lawyers and litigators. Roxanne Rochester, 44, runs a one person law office that services individuals and small businesses. Eight of the bar associations consider her qualified, but two do not, including the influential Council of Lawyers which cited her lack of criminal trial experience.
But Ramon Ocasio, 44, presents a different story. After joining the bar in 1989, Ocasio spent four years as a public defender in the criminal courts. He left that job to run the Illinois Attorney General's regional consumer fraud office in Chicago. Eight years later, he returned to the public defender's office, where he is now a supervisor with 18 other lawyers working beneath him. In addition to his courtroom experience, Ocasio is president of the Puerto Rican Bar Association so it's not surprising all 10 bar associations rate him qualified, and two consider him highly qualified.
One reason for Ed Lechowicz's low rating by the bar associations is that he couldn't care less. "I believe I'm fully qualified and the leaders of the Democratic Party believe I'm fully qualified," he told The Sun-Times's Carol Marin in January. So he simply ignored their request to submit his qualifications for consideration. Besides, "Bar associations set an unreasonable limit", he told Marin, referring to their preference for candidates with 10 to 12 years experience. (Lechowicz has eight.) He's the slated candidate of the Cook County Democratic Party. The others are not. Case closed.
The fact is Lechowicz is right. Bar association ratings don't count as much in these elections as political muscle, and no one has more political muscle in this neighborhood than his father, Ted Lechowicz. For as long as I can remember, Lechowicz has been running for office here. He served seven terms in the state assembly, five in the state Senate and three as a county commissioner (the last two at the same time.)
The elder Lechowicz was one of the reigning powers on the county board when his son Ed got his job in the chief judge's office. But his personal winning streak ran out in 2002 when Forrest Claypool, now running for County Board President, ousted him from the northwest side seat in a well-financed campaign to "throw the bums out."
No one is holding tag days for Ted Lechowicz, 67. He's retired now, but earning $207,800 a year from three government pensions and an $80,000 a year job as a member of the Illinois Labor Relations Board. (The last appointment appears to be a lame duck gift from a defeated Gov. George Ryan to a defeated Lechowicz right after the 2002 elections.)
But he's anxious to see his son succeed. If Ed Lechowicz wins, he will jump from a clerk's salary to the roughly $150,000 a year Circuit Court judges make, probably for the rest of his life.
Open elections are held for Circuit Court judgeships only when an incumbent retires or dies. Once a candidate is elected, he must submit his name to the voters only once every six years on a judicial retention ballot where 40% of citywide voters who bother to mark the ballot (most don't since they can't tell who is who) must specifically vote him out. Since 1964, 98% of the judges have won retention, and none have been removed in this century.
Recent polls indicate the March 21 Democratic primary here may be a hot contest between Claypool and John Stroger, the current president of the county board. Both sides will have their precinct workers at the polling sites - and so will the judicial candidates.
Ocasio has the endorsement of two state Senators in the district, Miguel Del Valle and Iris Martinez, and The Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO.)
Lechowicz will be carrying the support of Congressman Luis Guitierez; Aldermen Mell, Matlak, Flores, Burnett, Schulter, Carrothers, Mitts and Suarez; county commissioners Maldonado and Berrios; Secretary of State Jesse White; and, naturally, The Teamsters.
Who do you think is going to win?
Copyright © 2006, The Week Behind
