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Hey you gals, got a bit of a thread here about an important issue for candidates in the race for Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
If history is any indication, the Democratic nominee for Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County will easily win the general election.
Less certain is whether a candidate with the endorsement of the Cook County Democratic Party will win the nomination. In 2015, the party rescinded its endorsement of incumbent Clerk Dorothy Brown in favor of another candidate. Brown won the primary anyway.
No matter who wins the election, they will take office at a critical time for the court system in Cook County (and across Illinois). That’s because last year the General Assembly passed the Criminal and Traffic Assessment Act. I helped!
The bill arose out of a task force created to study the problem of court costs. Over the past couple of decades, the number of fees and fines charged to criminal defendants and civil litigants exploded.
Basically, when someone had an idea for a program but didn’t want to raise taxes to pay for it, they created a court fee. Because who really cares about another $5 charged to someone convicted of burglary?
This created a financial burden on those individuals and posed a major challenge to court clerks who are responsible for computing ever more complicated charges based on the type of case. When they get it wrong, people can appeal- creating even more work.
Additionally, the people saddled with what sometimes amounted to thousands of dollars of debt that they could never pay off perpetually run into problems because of that debt. And their cases were never able to close, creating more work for clerks to maintain the records.
Keep in mind that much of that debt was charges to fund programs that have absolutely nothing to do with the crime they were convicted of or legal matter they were contesting.
The task force worked for a year and wrote a report that basically said we should scrap the current system and create on that is more rational and affordable. One that kept a link between offense and court cost and provided relief to people unable to afford the costs.
And we did it! It took a couple years of wrangling, but as of July 1, 2019 we threw out the old way and put in a new one.
Essentially, every offense or type of civil filing has been assigned to a schedule. Each schedule has a cap on how much can be charged and clearly states how the funds are divvied up to various entities.
Critically, there’s also now a waiver of criminal court costs based on a person’s income. Judges also have more tools to set payment schedules and allow community service in lieu of payment.
OK HERE IS WHERE IT GETS IMPORTANT AND RELEVANT TO THE RACE FOR COOK COUNTY COURT CLERK SORRY IT TOOK A WHILE
We didn’t have great data on the collection and disbursement of funds under the old system. So the agencies that received that funding were nervous the dramatic impact we might be creating on their budgets if we didn’t get the amounts of charges correct.
We felt good about our numbers, but we couldn’t make any guarantees. So we added some data collection provisions and created a sort of trial period. The Criminal and Traffic Assessment Act will be automatically repealed at the end of 2020.
We did that so that in case anybody’s ox really got gored or anyone got an unintentional windfall from the new system, the General Assembly would be forced to go back and adjust the numbers.
Based on the legislative schedule, it’s likely that this will happen next spring- amid a contentious primary and before the new clerk is elected and sworn in.
I’m hoping to learn through the campaign what the various Democratic candidates know about the CTAA and what their thoughts are for revising it. It’d behoove them to get up to speed quickly if they want to make sure their office is properly funded.
And it would extremely helpful to have court clerk pay attention to Springfield and speak up when a return to the bad old days of myriad fees is proposed.
There were a dozen bills doing that introduced this year along. The FY2020 state budget *restored* a fee that we eliminated in CTAA less than a year before. 🙄
Cook County has a unique mix of civil and criminal cases. All the participants in those cases have a right to access justice. I believe the Criminal and Traffic Assessment Act gives the clerk a powerful tool to ensure that's the case.
But it will take thoughtful review and recommendations to ensure CTAA is well implemented and revised. I hope the party supports someone committed to its principles.
That's all! If you ever saw me crying in the Stratton Building now you know why!
I also agree with @EricZorn and @RepMikeQuigley that we probably shouldn't elect court clerks.
@EricZorn @RepMikeQuigley A coda: I mean no disrespect to the many elected court clerks from across the state I've met and worked with. There are plenty who actually do just want to be "the best darn court recordkeepers ever."
