Justices of theSupreme Court of Illinois are elected by district. Two seats held partisan elections.[1] Originally, two additional seats were scheduled as retention elections, however JusticeRita Garman retired on July 7, 2022, and the retention election for her seat was canceled.[2]
The court has seven seats total separated into five districts. The first district, representingCook County, contains three seats, making it a multi-member district, while the other four districts aresingle-member districts.[3] Justices hold ten year terms.[3]
On June 4, 2021, GovernorJ. B. Pritzker signed legislation that redrew the Supreme Court's districts.[4] Before this, the districts had not been redrawn in over five decades.[5] The court had previously been using boundaries created in 1964.[6]
In 2020, JusticeRobert R. Thomas of the 2nd district was up for retention. However, Thomas retired on February 29, 2020. On March 1, 2020,Michael J. Burke, a Republican, was appointed to his seat and held it until a special election in 2022.[7][8] The redrawn 2nd district comprises the 16th, 19th, 22nd, and 23rd Judicial Circuits, with the 15th, 17th, and 18th Judicial Circuits removed. Since Justice Burke's residence is in the 18th Judicial Circuit which is now located in the 3rd district, he ran in the election to that seat, leaving the 2nd district with an open race.[9]
In 2020, 3rd district judgeThomas L. Kilbride, a Democrat, lost his retention election. 56.5% of the vote was to retain Justice Kilbride, but under Illinois law, a Justice must receive at least 60% of the vote in order to be retained.[17]Robert L. Carter, a Democrat, was appointed by the court to hold the seat until a 2022 special election to fill it.[18] Upon his appointment, Carter declared that he did not intend to seek reelection in 2022.[19] The redrawn 3rd district kept the 12th and 13th Judicial District in it boundaries from the previous map. The redrawn district also added the 18th and 21st Judicial Districts and removed the 9th, 10th, and 14th Judicial Districts from its boundaries, which were moved to the redrawn 4th district.
