Inside the beast: How Cook County judges are elected

Best thing I've read so far today.

Abdon Pallasch takes us inside a Hotel Allegro conference room where Cook County's Democratic ward and township committeemen decide who to slate for three seats on the state appellate court and seven seats on the Cook County circuit court.

Among the juicy details dished out, here's an eye-opening explanation about who gets elected in these contests:

Here's who wins judicial elections in Cook County: Women with Irish names. For whatever reason in this county where roughly half the residents are women and 17 percent claim Irish ancestry, women lawyers with Irish names win more than 50 percent of all countywide judicial elections.

That's why lawyers of Jewish or other ancestry often legally adopt Irish names to run for judge here. That's why when party leaders slate men without Irish names, such as William Haddad, who would have been the first Arab-American full-circuit judge in Cook County, the party must recruit Irish women lawyers to run as "ringers" or "stalking horses" to flood the ballot and fracture the Irish-woman vote.

The rules are clear for ringers, if unwritten. You do not campaign -- not even a sign in your front lawn. Your job is to siphon votes from Irish women candidates really running for judge -- not to win, though sometimes that happens, and then you get to be judge. You may be rewarded for your service by being slated for judge in future elections. But you're not supposed to admit you're a fake candidate.

Explains Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke?