SPRINGFIELD — Whereas a crocheted serpent took its place on the Capitol rotunda this week and the governor signed a pair of main payments handed within the latest veto session, historical past was occurring on the Illinois Supreme Courtroom.
For the primary time in its historical past, the state’s excessive court docket is made up of a majority of ladies judges.
And it’s by a 5-2 margin.
Justices Elizabeth Rochford and Mary Kay O’Brien had been sworn in Monday. The 2 Democrats had been each elected to the excessive court docket in November. Justice Pleasure V. Cunningham, who was appointed to exchange retired Justice Anne M. Burke, was sworn in Dec. 1.
The brand new justices be a part of Lisa Holder White, who was sworn in because the court docket’s first Black girl justice on July 7. Cunningham turned the second, bringing the variety of Black justices on the Supreme Courtroom to a few, additionally a high-water mark for the establishment.
Fittingly, the historic court docket might be led by Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis, who formally assumed that title in October, following Burke and changing into the fourth girl chief within the court docket’s historical past.
She’s been on the court docket since 2010, and ascended to the highest spot by the court docket’s normal course of, which supplies the gavel to longest-tenured justice who hasn’t but held it.
She’ll preside over a court docket on which 4 of its seven members have been seated for lower than six months.
The day after her ceremonial swearing in on the Supreme Courtroom constructing on Nov. 14, Theis sat down with me for in an interview within the Supreme Courtroom chamber to speak historical past and the challenges forward in navigating a younger, inexperienced court docket. The dialog was the topic of the newest episode of Capitol Information Illinois’ “Capitol Solid” podcast.
“In my life story, I’m not a trailblazer. I’m not Mary Ann McMorrow, who was the primary girl on our court docket,” she mentioned. McMorrow was first elected to the court docket in 1992.
Theis added, nevertheless, that whereas she was a public defender in Prepare dinner County early in her regulation profession, she was one among three girls within the Prepare dinner County felony bar.
“To say I used to be the one girl within the room is completely true for a really very long time in my profession, even after I went on the bench,” she mentioned. “There have been very, only a few girls. However there have been some. And as we moved alongside, there have been many extra behind me.”
Range on the bench, Theis mentioned, is each enriching to deliberations and vital from a symbolism standpoint.
“It wasn’t that way back when Charles Freeman was the primary African American on this court docket. He joined the court docket in 1990,” Theis mentioned. “However he was the one African American up till 2018 after which Scott Neville joined this court docket.”
Neville remained the one Black justice till he was joined this yr by Holder White and Cunningham.
“All of the sudden, we’re now going to have three folks (on this court docket) which can be folks of colour,” Theis mentioned. “It says one thing about our state and one thing about our court docket that we have advanced to such a spot that we are able to have that variety.”
For all of the historic progress on the court docket’s diversification, Latino judges proceed to be underrepresented on the excessive court docket and the appellate courts instantly under it. Whereas Illinois is eighteen p.c Latino, the Illinois Latino Agenda famous in a information launch, there’s only one Latino appellate justice and none have ever served on the excessive court docket.
Teams just like the Puerto Rican Bar Affiliation have additionally continued to name on the excessive court docket to nominate Latinos to court docket vacancies on the appellate and Supreme degree.
I didn’t instantly ask Theis in regards to the lack of Latino illustration in state courts, however she did converse to the significance of all Illinoisans being represented.
“In my expertise…when there are folks with totally different backgrounds and totally different life experiences, they create one thing to the desk, they enrich the dialogue, they enrich the opinions that we make,” she mentioned.
Whereas Theis mentioned she’s invigorated by the brand new court docket and the experiences and worldviews its new members will deliver to the bench, she described the challenges of the court docket’s turnover as “innumerable.”
“It’s simply 4 new folks beginning a brand new job,” she mentioned. “We have now to actually spend a while speaking collectively, to start with, simply in regards to the historical past and traditions of how the court docket circulates opinions and actual sensible issues like that. However I am wanting ahead to some conversations with the brand new court docket as to what they need.”
One place the brand new justices will bond is the Supreme Courtroom’s eating corridor. When in Springfield, the members of the excessive court docket keep in dwelling quarters above the court docket chamber and eat all or most of their meals along with the chief on the head of the desk.
“The concept being that you simply get to know folks, and you discover out all about them,” Theis mentioned. “And, you realize, you discuss in regards to the Bears. Otherwise you discuss in regards to the climate. Otherwise you speak about no matter you are going to speak about. And also you get to know folks and respect folks. After which once you go to make selections, there’s this sense of respect. And once you disagree, it comes from a spot of respect.”
There’s additionally one other appreciable shift on the court docket — its 4-3 Democratic majority of latest years has grown to 5-2.
For Theis, that doesn’t imply a lot.
The one disagreement over celebration she had with outgoing Republican Justice Michael Burke, she mentioned, was that he’s a White Sox fan and she or he hails from “the shadows of Wrigley discipline.”
“There is no such thing as a partisanship, until you wish to say sports activities partisanship,” she mentioned.
The 18 selections launched by the court docket final month again up her declare. None had been selected partisan traces.
Jerry Nowicki is the bureau Chief of Capitol Information Illinois, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information service masking state authorities that’s distributed to greater than 400 newspapers statewide. It’s funded primarily by the Illinois Press Basis and the Robert R. McCormick Basis.
