South Cook News

Veronica Bonilla-Lopez is a proponent of the proposed subcircuits because she says judges need to have varied backgrounds to better draw from their own experiences and have a better understanding of the communities they serve when ruling their cases.

Under the new maps, the number of subcircuits in Cook County will increase from 15 to 20, due to the population growth in the Chicagoland area. Rep. Lisa Hernandez, Chair of the House Redistricting Committee, said the subcircuits will better reflect the population and demographic shifts that have occurred across the county during the past three decades.

“Judges are finders of fact and draw from their experiences and common sense when they make their rulings,” Bonilla-Lopez, a civil litigator for the Del Galdo Law Group, LLC, told the South Cook News.  “So it’s extremely important that they represent their community from where they are being elected. And because they are drawing on those experiences to have them rule, again, it's important for them to draw from those experiences and understand those communities they’re coming from and the culture from the Latino community when they’re ruling on those cases. Which is why we are a proponent of the subcircuits as they are proposed."

Proponents of subcircuit districts for Cook County judges hope a new system would add more minorities to the bench and remove politics from the appointment process. Opponents suggest less-qualified judges might be elected and more politics for posts might be created.

Cook County, under the new system, has been divided initially into 15 subcircuits. Some circuit judges will still be elected countywide, but as city and suburban-wide judgeships become vacant, they will be assigned to one of the 15 districts for elections of new circuit judges. The new system will result in the number of associate judges being significantly trimmed. Some of the associate judgeships that become vacant will be assigned to a subcircuit for an election of full circuit judges.

Under the new system in November, voters elected 31 new circuit judges from the 15 districts. Eventually, 11 judges will be elected from each district.

Their election for retention will be countywide. Beyond the 165 subcircuit positions, judges will still be elected countywide, and the bench will continue to make appointments of associate judges to complete its roster. Exactly when all the 165 positions will be filled by subcircuit elections is impossible to predict due to a variety of variables.

Nine of the 31 new judges are African-American and two are Hispanic. These numbers barely increase African-American and Hispanic overall percentages as judges in the Cook County Circuit Court, but remain significant as part of the subcircuit total. 

Hispanics, women and Republicans also made gains in Cook County Circuit Court as voters elected two Hispanics, 12 women and seven Republicans from the subcircuits.

Bonilla-Lopez said it’s important that people of color have the opportunity to be judges. “It says something to younger Latino lawyers to see Latino judges, to aspire to that, to know that that is an option for them,” she said. “I think that speaks mountains.”