Never mind that the vacancy created when Judge David Delgado resigned was for the 6th subcircuit, a region on Chicago’s near north side, and Santiago’s home was in the 7th subcircuit, a region farther south.
Santiago, then a public defender, said she moved back into her parent’s house inside the subcircuit and won election to the vacancy the following year.
And so it goes in the murky world of Cook County subcircuits, a system devised two decades ago when African American, Hispanic and women legislators banded together with Republicans to shake up the system by dictating that at least some judges would come from subcircuits across the county that theoretically would be more representative of local communities.
It hasn’t necessarily worked out the way it was intended. Today there are indeed more women and people of color on the bench. But many factors beyond the subcircuit divisions — including the changing demographics of the legal profession — have helped spur that diversity.
(Part 1)
Full Article and Source:
Judging the Judges: Cook County’s Troubled Judiciary Elections System