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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Illinois Court of Appeals Judge Mary O’Brien has won the state Supreme Court election, increasing the court’s Democratic majority in a year when Republicans hope they can control their way .
The match, reported by the Associated Press late Friday, gave O’Brien a narrow victory over Michael Burke, the Republican who was appointed to fill the Supreme Court vacancy last year.
Combined with this week’s victory for Lake County Deputy Circuit Judge Elizabeth Rochford, Democrats raised their court majority to 5-2 from 4-3. Rochford defeated Mark Curran, a former prosecutor and longest-serving sheriff in Lake County history.
Along with Democrats, women will have a firm grip on the courts. With Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis winning a second 10-year term, women now hold five of the court’s seven positions.
The election result was a blow to Republicans, who wanted two seats and shifted the court’s political leaning to the right for the first time since the 1970s. This became even more important after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion 50 years ago, Raise the profile of the state Supreme Court campaign nationwide.
Both races will determine voter preferences to fill vacancies that emerge in 2020 as Republican Justice Bob Thomas and Unprecedented Failure Democrat Thomas Kilbride failed to get 60% of the vote and needs to remain in a third 10-year term.
Republicans engaged in the most expensive anti-judicial reservation campaign in history to oust Kilbride, opening the door to this year’s open seat race. But that has been opposed by convention Democrats, who have redrawn electoral districts for the court for the first time since 1964 and realigned Kilbride’s Republican-leaning district.
Michael Burke was named to succeed Thomas. Kilbride’s replacement, Robert Carter, opted not to seek an election, opening the door for O’Brien and Curran.
Follow Political Writer John O’Connor https://twitter.com/apoconnor
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