Sylvia Coulon Hampton (00:02.079)
Welcome to this month's episode of your morning legal briefing. We have two attorneys originally from Chicago and this month's special guest, Jacob Kaplan, the executive director of the Cook County Democrats, here to talk about his upcoming event, The Road to the Robe, and how to become a judge in Cook County, Illinois. The show is sponsored by Hampton & Hampton LLP, a personal injury, estate planning and nursing home negligence law firm located in Chicago, Illinois and Alpharetta, Georgia. Now let's kick off the show. Jacob, do you want to get started? Can you tell us a little bit about your background and the event? Because you're an attorney as well.

Jacob Kaplan (00:50.329)
Sure, and thank you so much for having me. Glad to be here. So yeah, I've been serving as executive director of the Cook County Democratic Party for the last 10 and a half years. My background is interesting. It's both in Chicago history, and I ended up in politics, and then that led to the law. So I'm born and raised here in Chicago, ended up with some friends of mine many, many years ago, starting an organization called Forgotten Chicago, where we gave tours of neighborhoods, overlooked history in the city, and architecture, that sort of thing. And through some connections I made there, I started getting more involved in Chicago politics. I ended up running a campaign for a state representative, Rob Martwick, in the northwest side of the city back in 2012. And kind of random connections I made there, and I loved politics. I ended up getting hired as the executive director of the Cook County Democratic Party in 2014, and I've been there ever since. And in my role at the party, dealing with, elected officials all across the county, but particularly dealing with so many candidates for judge every single election cycle. It's a lot of what we do at the party. I got more interested in the law and particularly election law and decided to go to law school myself. So I started at Chicago Kent, the evening program in 2019 and did that for four years all through the craziness of COVID. Got out, passed the bar exam in three and I'm now a lawyer. I'm not practicing yet technically, but I do have a license.

Jacob Kaplan (02:17.251)
Glad to be part of the profession.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (02:19.598)
Welcome to the show that sounds like an exciting background from history to law to the Democratic Party.

Jacob Kaplan (02:28.889)
Yes, absolutely. They all kind of work together oftentimes here in Chicago. They're all related.

HG Hampton (02:35.382)
Absolutely.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (02:35.596)
Right. Well, why don't you go a little bit into more detail about your event. I know the judicial elections are coming up next year in the primary elections. Why should people want to learn more about becoming a judge in Cook County?

Jacob Kaplan (02:56.911)
Well, judges interact with the citizens more than any other elected official, honestly, in Cook County, arguably.  We vote for many different types of offices up and down the ballot. But when it comes to things that actually directly affect people's lives so often that has to do with the judicial system and judges. And here in Cook County and in Illinois, unlike some other states, we elect pretty much all of our judges directly by the voters. And due to that, and the fact that there are so many judges on the ballot every election cycle here in Cook County, particularly, one of the roles that the Cook County Democratic Party plays is making sure that we endorse candidates for judicial office that are held to the highest integrity that come from diverse backgrounds and that are going to have the right perspective for becoming a judge and are going to be a good judge. But because we have so many judicial offices, particularly again here in County, we have a lot of people that want to become a judge. mean, for one thing, it's of course, it's a coveted job. It has great benefits and it's position of great prestige here in Cook County. But oftentimes people don't know how to go about doing it.

In my time at the party when I first started we didn't have something a training session like road to the road So we had a lot of people showing up to our endorsement sessions what we call our slating sessions that we're interested in running for judge But just kind of showed up on the day of and really didn't know about the process or kind of the right way to go about doing it or or all the different paths to becoming a judge and After a couple cycles that we decided why don't we start our own training session completely free of charge? Where anybody is interested in becoming a judge can show up?

hear from experts in the field and really understand the process and understand that maybe this time around isn't the right time to run for judge. Maybe it'll be two or four or six years down the road, but they understand how to get themselves there. So we first did this road of the road seminar in 2019 and it's only grown ever since. We've done it every two years right before the, the year before every election cycle. And so we've got one coming up this month, March of 2025. We've got it coming up on March 29th.

Jacob Kaplan (05:14.209)
It is a free, completely free session. anybody is in Cook County or knows anybody who is interested in running for judge in Cook County, they can go on our website, cookcountydems.com slash Robe, R-O-B-E and sign up for this session on a Saturday and hear from great speakers about the process, about the ways to become a judge, the different paths and kind of the pitfalls of running for office, how to seek the party endorsements. Of course, you don't have to run with our endorsement, but we think it's, it's, it's tends to lend to more success.

in elections. So yeah, it's just it's a great seminar for anybody interested in running and we highly recommend anybody that has that interest they should attend.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (05:54.008)
You're exactly right. Becoming a judge is really a mystery, not only to people that are interested in running for judge, but also the citizens as well. Additionally, historically voter turnout especially for judges in the primary elections in Chicago has been relatively low. Even in the general elections, I think they said that it had been the lowest voter turnout, it has been in the past 80 years. And historically I read one in five Chicago voters participated in the primary elections.

So maybe you can go into a little bit more detail about the slating process, what's all involved, how a candidate gets on that ticket. And this could potentially maybe unlock some of that mystery to let people know how to run for judge as well as why they should come out once those nominees are selected and vote in the election.

Jacob Kaplan (07:11.865)
Sure. again, just speaking here about Cook County and Chicago, we elect most of our judges, not all of them. So we have about 400 judges here just in Cook County, circuit court judges. And the vast majority of those are elected. There are some so-called associate judges, which are elected by their fellow members of the bench. They're elected by the full circuit judges. But that number has been getting smaller.

because we just passed a bill a few years ago here in Illinois that increased the number of judicial sub-circuits or districts. So we're moving to even more elected judges here in Cook County. Now, we have these 20 sub-circuits throughout Cook County where people can run for judge just in a defined geographic area. And that's a great way we feel to increase representation of communities and groups all throughout the county if they're just getting elected in the area where they live.

And so that's one path. Those are the sub circuits of County, again, 20 of them. And if you come to our Road to the Robe seminar, we talk about that as being one path, especially if somebody is really well known in their neighborhood, their community, their ward. That may be the right path to go. But the other path is to run for judge countywide, where there's a number of judges that are assigned to run in the entire county. And of course, these are all up in the primary elections. So we're talking now about this election will be in March of next year, March of.

2026. And so what we do as a whole here at the Cook County Democratic Party is we get together and we determine which of those judicial candidates we want to endorse for those countywide judicial spots. I should mention that the Cook County Democratic Party is a small D Democratic Party. It's made up of 80 elected Democratic committee persons representing the 50 wards and the 30 townships of Cook County. So every ward and township in Cook County when

The Democratic primary voters go and vote. They vote for a Democratic committee person and that representative is who comes and forms the party and then votes on these endorsement for, for judicial candidates and candidates up and down the ballot. So if a candidate is interested in running for judge countywide, they go through what we call our slating process here at the party. And it's a two step process. Well, it's really many steps, but in terms of the slating meetings, there's two of them. There's

Jacob Kaplan (09:33.487)
what we call our pre-slating meeting, which this year is even earlier than usual. It's coming up next month in April. And then we have slating, which is where the votes are actually taken and we actually do our endorsements and that'll be in July. Now this is all happening and some might say, isn't this really early? This is the elections until March of 2026. Why are you doing this so early? Well, for one thing, the legislature last year moved up the petition process even earlier. So now if you want to get on the ballot to run, in the March of 2026 primary, you'll begin circulating nominated petitions at beginning of August of this year. So that means we have to do our endorsements before petitions begin in July and everything gets moved up. So next month we'll be doing our pre-slating meeting where candidates that are interested in running get to present their credentials, talk about why they're qualified to be a judge and take questions from those 80 elected democratic committee persons. It's kind of like a extended meet and greet you could say. that, know, typically they'll appear for 15 minutes or so. And, you know, there'll be lots of questions about their background and that sort of thing. There's no votes taken at that meeting though. The votes will actually be taken in July at another slating meeting where again, all 80 committee persons get together. hear from the candidates one last time, ask them any final questions, and then they vote on the slate of judges. every cycle, we're never quite sure how many judicial vacancies we're going to have countywide. We know how many there are at the time we do slating, but sometimes. 

There'll be vacancies that appear afterwards because a judge retires or a vacancy appears for whatever reason. And so we also slate a number of alternates so that we're ready with additional candidates if those additional vacancies appear. So again, if anybody's interested in running for judge countywide in Cook County, they would go through the slating process. And then in July of this year, we'll make those endorsements. And if they are lucky to be one of the ones slated for judge.

then we will help them through the whole process. We'll help them with their petitions starting in August, help them get on the ballot. We do a bunch of outreach to voters, both traditional ways with mail, with digital communication, that sort of thing. And we help make sure that our slate wins. And I'm proud to say that last cycle, the 2024 primary cycle, for the first time that I can find, honestly, in the history of the party, we won every single judicial office on the ballot in Cook County. All of the party endorsed candidates won. And that's, I think.

Jacob Kaplan (11:54.049)
Again, and up and down the ballot, won 21 out of 23 of our endorsed candidates period, but we won all of the judicial races. So I think that's a testament to the fact that we put together a slate that represents the diversity of Cook County. It represents all the different communities and backgrounds, is balanced racially, is balanced between men and women, is balanced with ethnic communities. And we make sure that the slate represents the diversity of Cook County and is also highly qualified so that you can, when you go vote, you understand that if there are Cook County

Democratic Party endorsed candidate, they're going to have good bar ratings. They're going to be a candidate that reflects the background that judges should have in Cook County. And people really respect that. And I think that's why our endorsement has been successful. I will say that even though turnout in some of these elections has been getting lower in some ways, and it depends on the cycle, whether it's a midterm or presidential or that sort of thing, interest in judicial elections.

especially since the election of Donald Trump the first time in 2016, has been going up every cycle. More and more people do vote down the ballot for those judges. There's still a lot of so-called drop-off where people will vote for president and then not vote down the ballot for judges. But the amount of drop-off is getting smaller because I think more and more people realize just how important judges, even on the local level, are to their daily lives.

HG Hampton (13:13.573)
So I have a question to that, to a couple of points you made, Jacob. So of the 400 sitting judges, how many of those were endorsed by the Cook County Democratic Party, would you say?

Jacob Kaplan (13:30.535)
That's a really good question. I don't have that data offhand. I'd love to know, but that would require going back a lot of years, all before my time at the party, just because a lot of those judges, people tend to stay on the bench a long time. So many of them may have been elected 30, 40 years ago in some cases. So I don't know. I know it's a large percentage, but I can't tell you exact numbers.

HG Hampton (13:41.359)
Yeah.

HG Hampton (13:47.684)
Okay.

HG Hampton (13:51.077)
And the reason, and so, so for instance, let's say somebody wanted to, you know, they wanted to become a judge. They were in private practice, but they weren't, uh, they weren't a Democrat. say they're independent. Uh, would they have an opportunity? Like, what would that person do?

Jacob Kaplan (14:09.519)
Well, if they live in Cook County, it's really the only way, honestly, you can get elected judge in Cook County to an elected spot, at least when you're running countywide. This may be, this has occasionally been different in some of the local sub-circuits. There have been Republicans, for instance, elected in some of the far flung suburban judicial county, and in our counties, of course. But if you're talking about Cook County, countywide, the only way you're ever going to win for judge, at least in the foreseeable future is running as a Democrat. Because in

HG Hampton (14:26.487)
Right. Collar counties. Yeah.

HG Hampton (14:37.091)
Yeah. So do you think, I think, you know, and I was born in Chicago, born and raised on the South side. I think that, that you're, we ended up missing out on a pool of great possible judges. Cause it's like, you either kind of come to this side or you're not going to sit on the bench. And so what happens is a lot of talented lawyers figure, well, you know, there's no reason to even throw my hat in there. Cause unless I, I'm going to, you know, go.

I'm going to be a Democrat, which is maybe they're just like more independent minded, not even Republican, then they don't have a shot. And I think there is a sort of loss of talent from that standpoint. get it. It is what it is. It's Cook County. So is it, has any thought process been putting it into that? Like getting that talent on board.

Jacob Kaplan (15:31.223)
Well, I think there's other paths to become a judge. If it's somebody who doesn't want to run in a partisan election or doesn't consider themselves a Democrat, they can still try to become an associate judge. Again, that number has been getting smaller as we've created more judicial districts, but there still are a number of judges, even in Cook County, who are just appointed by their fellow judges on the bench. So there are paths there and there have been independents and even in some cases. It's getting smaller just because we passed this bill a couple of years ago to

HG Hampton (15:43.493)
All right.

HG Hampton (15:55.589)
But that's getting smaller, like he said.

Jacob Kaplan (16:00.887)
increase the number of sub-circuits. So we took from some of that pool of associate judges to create those new sub-circuits. But there still are associate judge vacancies that pop up. if somebody doesn't want to run in a partisan election, that may be a path. Other than that, just they might have to look at moving to another part of the state, honestly. It's just, you know, talking about Cook County, it's just you, at least if you're running countywide, you have to be a Democrat. And even

HG Hampton (16:15.096)
Okay.

Jacob Kaplan (16:26.785)
If you're running in those sub-circuits in this age of hyper-partisan politics and Donald Trump, even those far-flung suburban sub-circuits are mostly Democrats are going to win as well in this current environment. So it's just the general.

HG Hampton (16:38.199)
And, and is that, I'm just throwing out hypotheticals cause I, and I get it, you know, it's Cook County. It's the democratic machine. It's, you know, it's a complete vice grip, but let's say, you know, you had a, a, lawyer, let's say he's a Republican. He's, he's in Cook County and he says, you know, and he's like, let's say he's a millionaire and he says, you know, I'm going to fund a campaign. I want to be a judge. I'm going to independently fund my campaign.

before you know i'm gonna get some donors it is does that guy or that woman have a shot or is that you know the dc dot sort of thing

Jacob Kaplan (17:14.029)
I don't think they have a shot if they're running countywide in Cook County. I just, the last Republican to win any office countywide in Cook County, I think was in the 1990s. So I just, I think it's highly unlikely if they're running as a Republican, especially in this current partisan environment, they might be able to run in a, again, one of those judicial sub-circuits in the more far flung areas of the county or maybe in one of the collar counties, but.

HG Hampton (17:19.769)
Why not?

Jacob Kaplan (17:41.645)
If you're talking about running countywide in County, just don't see your problem.

HG Hampton (17:44.577)
Is that, is that because of just like the Democrat sort of vice grip that, that, that it has on Cook County?

Jacob Kaplan (17:51.395)
Well, it's just because it's a Democratic county and it's become more so. It's become more so. Now it's not, it's a lot of the suburban areas of the county have become Democratic as well as they've seen the extreme stuff going on in the Republican party.

HG Hampton (17:54.809)
Right.

HG Hampton (18:05.561)
Well, I, you know, and again, just like man on the streets, I'll be honest. Today I see more people like, I'm kind of more independent than when I was growing up. was like Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, no matter what, right? My grandmother, we're just going to pick the Democrat. That's who it's going to be. now I see more of, well, we want to know what's the platform and then we'll make a decision. So I don't really see the.

You know, I see more independent thinking on the street now in the politics of it. It's probably more Democrat than ever. I just kind of, it seems like it may be a little less of that just if you take a poll outside, know, even, you know, say what Trump got a significant amount compared to past presidents.

of Chicago voters. So, you know, so I just thought that was interesting and I wondered how that reflects in the judiciary. Again, because of me, and I've been in, you know, practicing in Cook County for, you know, since 2010 and trying cases that in front of judges, criminal, civil. And so for me, it's like, I just want a good judge. That's what I want a judge that knows.

you know, like I'm looking at my notes here, it's a good judge, knowledge of the law, real world legal experience, courage, right? It takes courage. if you've got, you know, an individual suing a multinational corporation and the judge is handling that case, the judge has to have a little bit of courage if it's

If it looks like the individual is in the right there. So courage, I'd even say good health, right? Because it's a tough job being a judge day in, day out, dealing with these cases and the caseloads that they deal with. So you got to have good health and then just the value and knowledge of the constitution. And so that to me is like, okay, give me those. And then I've got a good judge. I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican.

HG Hampton (20:28.941)
I understand the politics of it, but so.

Jacob Kaplan (20:32.429)
Yeah, no, I agree 100%. But yeah, it's just reality of partisan politics here in Cook County and way the run on partisan elections is just...

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (20:35.84)
Right.

HG Hampton (20:38.553)
haha

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (20:41.004)
And that's actually a good segue, Jacob, because one of the things that you mentioned were good ABA scores. So can you go into a little bit more detail about what you, the Democratic Party, et cetera, are looking for when they're thinking about endorsing a candidate for judge? What are some of those qualifications that you're looking for?

Jacob Kaplan (21:04.057)
Sure, so certainly bar ratings are something that we look at that are important to us. The Chicago Bar Association, the Illinois State Bar Association are very important to us and all the other bar associations that make up the alliance as well. I will say that it's sometimes a challenge because the process as it started happening earlier and earlier, candidates don't necessarily always have all of their bar ratings by the time we get to slating. So we have had cases where

Our endorsed candidates have perhaps gotten a negative bar rating from one of the bars, but if overall they get good bar ratings, we're not going to penalize somebody if they have one bad bar rating for a reason that they can explain and these things happen. But we do want judges that generally, broadly have good bar ratings because people, number one, it means that they're respected in the legal profession. And number two, people are paying more and more attention to these bar ratings in judicial elections.

And we want to make sure that we endorse candidates that honestly can win, that the voters can get behind. So, bar ratings are important. Diversity is important. Reflecting all again, as I talked about all the communities of Cook County, we want a diverse ticket. Having a background of community service in their neighborhood, in their ward, in their township is important. We want people that are engaged in the community because they're going to have to go out and ask these voters for their vote. And they're also going to have to serve the community as a judge. So, we want people that

have done some sort of community service or have a background of being active in their community for us to endorse them for judge. And then again, think broadly, unique legal experience is important to us. There's kind of this sense among some of the bar associations where people should be trial lawyers in order to be a judge, like that's the number one qualification. But in Phil County, we have many different divisions and we need many different types of judges in the county. It's not just

criminal trials, not just civil trials, it's also law division, it's also dealing with complex litigation, things like that. So it's not all about...

HG Hampton (23:07.235)
Yeah, domestic divorce court and things like that.

Jacob Kaplan (23:10.191)
Exactly. So we look for what the legal background is, what they've been doing. We also, we look at whether they've been a public defender or a state's attorney. That's all taken into account. So it's a broad range of factors. There's not any one that's more important than the other, but we just want to endorse candidates that we feel like with their breadth of experience and where they come from, they're going to be a good judge and represent the county well.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (23:35.656)
I think that was a good point and I think you said that very well because you're right, it's one of the most diverse regions in the nation. County definitely needs judges who reflect the communities that they serve. And so your recommendation come to the event. It's called Road to the Robes. Do you have, other than coming to the event, if there's a candidate that's highly qualified but may not know that many representatives in the Democratic Party, do you have any other recommendations on networking or kind of getting their name out there if they're really serious about running for judge?

Jacob Kaplan (24:18.307)
Yeah, absolutely. If somebody's considering running for judge either this cycle or in a future cycle, the best thing you can do if you want to seek the party's endorsement or you want to, even if you're going to run in a local sub-circuit in a district in Cook County, is to get to know the local Democratic committee persons that represent either the county as a whole or the local district where you're going to run. you know, you can go on our website, cookcountydems.com. You can see the list of all 80 committee persons.

You can reach out to them there. There's contact info. can just introduce yourself and say, Hey, I'd to sit down and meet you. I'd to know about your upcoming events. And it's just, there's no one way to go about doing it, but it's generally just getting to know these folks. mean, sometimes you'll reach out to somebody. may have to reach out multiple times before you are able to set up a meeting. that's sometimes somebody will reach right back out and say, let's meet soon. Everyone has different processes. Everybody's different, but just try to.

reach as many people as possible, as many of these elected committee persons, and get involved in local organizations. The most important thing, honestly, is to get involved in your local Ward or Township Democratic Organization. If you're in a Ward or Township that has an active one, not all of them do, but most do, find out when their next meetings are, show up to the meetings, just start being out there and showing up, and it will be noticed. There's no secret to it. It's not like there's a secret way to get into politics here.

People think we're the closed door machine many years ago that may have been the case, but really it's just about putting in the hard work and showing up. And that is noticed and that will ultimately lead to success, whether it's this election cycle or could be 10 years down the road.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (25:57.942)
Awesome.


Sylvia Coulon Hampton (26:00.472)
Do you have any other questions about becoming a judge for Jacob Halil?

HG Hampton (26:06.327)
yeah, let's see. So I've got a couple of like judicial staffing. I, one thing I noticed in, going, you know, going into court and Cook County, with some, some of the times it seems like there might be staffing issues. I'll give an example where we had a trial. This was a few months back and we had the trial.

And the judge said he was going to come back. said, okay, I'll, you know, I'll send out my decision in, you know, a week or so. Well, it, did a month past two months past the holiday path. And you know, we were like, okay, where's the decision? And then the judge, you know, and he said, this one slipped through the cracks. It, you know, and it kind of had an impact on the outcome of the case. I think the judge has had too many cases on his docket.

And it slipped through the, well, he said it slipped through the cracks. is that being addressed judicial maybe with the judges? Is it more judges? Is it more staffing? Because Cook County it's litigious. There's a million cases. and I don't see that stopping or slowing down. It's probably going to increase. and so, so how do we address that in terms of making sure, you know, that the judges aren't overworked?

with their caseloads.

Jacob Kaplan (27:34.157)
Yeah, I think this has been a constant issue over the years. think it also, during COVID, became a major thing when you had remote courts and the complications of doing that. think in some ways, the court system is still recovering from that period. But no, think overloaded dockets are always an issue. It's a massively huge county with a lot of things going on all the time. It's the largest.

HG Hampton (27:56.068)
Right.

Jacob Kaplan (27:57.423)
unified court system in the world, believe. You're in Illinois and Cook County, so it's huge. But even with 400 judges, sometimes in terms of case management, figuring out staffing and all that, can be a challenge. So that's something that I think the court system has to deal with. It's something the legislature has had to deal with. I will say that when the...

Bill was passed to increase the number of judicial sub-circuits in Cook County to create more districts. There was not really an appetite in the legislature to adding more new judicial positions. There wasn't really a budget for that. So we just took from the associate judges and added them to the sub-circuit judges. And there is not an increase in the number of judges in Cook County. So that's something that some have talked about.

HG Hampton (28:31.855)
Yeah.

Jacob Kaplan (28:42.007)
you know, thinking about, of course, with the budgetary constraints that we now are facing here in the state and in Cook County and all over the place, I don't know if that's going to happen anytime soon. So I think it's just all about improving case management. And and I know that the chief judge and others here in Cook County are working on that, but it's always a challenge.

HG Hampton (29:00.173)
Yeah, I think it's, it is a challenge. And I think again, because, the, the caseloads aren't going to just slow down. And so they, I, if I was going to bet, I'd say they were probably going to increase as, as things get more kind of volatile and overall society lawsuits start getting filed, contracts aren't getting paid. construction work is getting slow and this leads to litigation and, and it falls on the judge's plate.

And so, you know, I think it's something that has to be addressed because you're just going to see the integrity of the judicial system suffer. because again, I don't, I don't blame the judges because they're, they're overworked and they're like, okay. but I've got a thousand cases and you know, these are, these are humans. I, you know, so it could just be staffing, law clerks, law clerk recruiting, and things like that. that's something I like to see addressed.

And I know that's probably not your wheelhouse, but just wanted to see what your thoughts on that overall, because we see, you know, because I know it's the budget, right? And there's only so many dollars to go around. But the lay person sees that as well. There's money going over here. There's billions going there. There's billions going here. But if the judicial system is not functioning on, you know, high efficiency,

And while we're watching all these, you know, dollars going to all these other places, people start questioning, you know, the whole system. So, um, yeah. So I like to see that address, but it's, it's, it's, I think it is an issue, but, um, we'll see how that plays out.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (30:49.728)
Well, hopefully we'll get some good candidates at your event, Jacob, that can address some of those issues. I think that would be great. Well, all right. The road to the road definitely sounds like an exciting and informative and event that everyone should attend. The event is being held March 29th from two until five p.m. at the Mid-American Carpenters Chicago Training Facility.

Jacob Kaplan (30:55.787)
Absolutely.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (31:16.504)
That address is on your website, I believe, Jacob, CookCountyDems.com, and people can go online and register for your event. Any final words on your event?

Jacob Kaplan (31:29.293)
No, just if anybody's interested again, even if you're not thinking about running for judge anytime soon, even if you just want to know the process, you don't think you're going to run for judge maybe ever. You just want to learn more about how judges are elected in Cook County and the process of running for it. Everybody's welcome, totally free. Hope to have a huge turnout. We've already got a lot of people signed up. So March 29th, hope to see you there.

HG Hampton (31:52.055)
And I've got one final question. If somebody wanted to sign up and they said, okay, they hear this and they want to sign up. Is there something, cause another barrier that stops people, I think from even considering it like, well, I probably can't afford it. You know, I don't have money to spend on a campaign. how does that work? Is that something that your organization helps with?

Jacob Kaplan (32:15.423)
Well, we definitely at the Road to the Robe seminar, we talk about fundraising and it's something that anybody running for judge has to do, unfortunately. You can't actually make fundraising calls themselves, but they have to set up a committee that does it. So we talk about ways to deal with that, even if somebody is not personally wealthy, is a modest means they can identify people that can help them in their campaign and colleagues or friends or law school classmates or other routes. So we help with that whole process. And that's part of what we talk about at the Road to the Robe seminar.

HG Hampton (32:18.981)
Okay.

HG Hampton (32:45.26)
Okay, wonderful.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (32:47.006)
Awesome, we hope to see everyone there.

HG Hampton (32:49.829)
Yes, indeed. Well, this was great information, Jacob. We appreciate you allowing us to talk to you and receive the information. I'm sure there'll be people listening that, you know, we need more judges, like I said. So let's get to the event.

Jacob Kaplan (33:08.121)
Sounds good. Looking forward to it. Thanks for having me.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (33:10.072)
Alright.

Well, switching to a different topic, Jacob, what we tend to do on our show for the second half of the show is we have our fair or foul segment. What happens is I'll provide the latest updates on current events in the news and Jacob, you and Halil can provide your feedback on whether that is fair or foul. So here we go. This month, we had two topics in both Chicago and national news.

The first topic is Brandon Johnson's testimony before Congress regarding Chicago sanctuary protections. And the second topic involves Trump cutting federal funding for illegal protests. Halil, I'll let you provide some background on Brandon Johnson visiting Congress. But for those that don't know, President Trump said on March 4th that he would halt federal funding for colleges and universities that allow what he calls illegal protests.

The move comes right as the Trump administration launched a review of Columbia University's federal contracts and has intensified discussions about the limits of lawful demonstrations and the potential consequences for higher education. Critics argue that the latest move could pressure colleges to suppress student activism and restrict first amendment rights, which protect the right to peacefully assembly, while proponents of the executive order argue

The action is necessary to combat anti-Semitism and hold perpetrators of anti-Semitic harassment and violence accountable. So Halil I'll let you kick it off. Fair or foul? What do you think about Brandon Johnson's testimony before Congress and Trump's executive order regarding illegal protests?

HG Hampton (35:03.831)
Okay. Well, as far as Brandon Johnson and so it wasn't so Brandon Johnson and the mayor of New York, Adams, and I think the Boston mayor and one or two other mayors, democratic mayors who have sanctuary city status were called before Congress. I think it was voluntary. didn't, I understand they didn't have to show up. They could have declined.

But so Brandon Johnson was one of the mayors. Me being from Chicago, I'm always, I'm a Chicago politic, you know, addict. I'm always into what's going on. And so I was interested in to see, you know, how was he going to respond? At the time he showed up, it was reported that his approval rating in Chicago was something like 6%. And so,

So, you know, he, think all in all, kind of, he didn't do too bad. He just stuck to the script. said, crime is going, because Congress's point was, you know, sanctuary city status is creating an increase in crime. I think that was sort of their hypothesis in all of these cities by bringing in migrants and not vetting who's coming into the city.

where you already have a destable environment and you already have a crime problem, you already have a homeless problem. And so you already have a housing problem, right? Minus the migrants. And then you have the sanctuary city status that that's just going to exacerbate those problems. That's sort of the congressional Republican position during this.

Um, and then, uh, so Brandon Johnson, kind of just stuck to the script. He just said, crime is going down. Um, the, the Chicago was voted as the greatest big city in America. Um, and he kind of just repeated certain points. think they said he repeated his points like 18 times. So that was his, uh, that was his strategy. Um, I don't think it was a bad strategy because I think it's a tough spot. You're a 6 % approval rating.

HG Hampton (37:29.413)
I think Chicagoans by and large don't like the sanctuary city status. think Chicagoans by and large agree that that's increasing the crime problem. It's increasing the homeless problem. It's not creating a stability. It's not bringing stability to the city. I think that's what Chicagoans believe and that's why his approval rating is low.

I think Brandon Johnson should just kind of be more frank and say, look, these are some issues we're going to address them and kind of have a plan, of how those are going to be addressed. but, but, you know, he kind of stuck to the script and just kind of repeated certain talking points. Cause I guess in Chicago, there is a, you know, homicides are down in comparison to last year.

certain violent crimes are down in comparison to last year, but other crimes are up by robberies and things like that. You turn, you can't turn on the TV without hearing somebody being robbed or something. and you know, where, as we're talking, there was a shooting, a shootout at O'Hara airport. You know, I hadn't, I've never heard of something like that. So I think it's a problem that he has to be more aggressive in addressing.

and I think that, you know, the sanctuary city, because when you're a sanctuary city, what you do, cause another thing that Brandon Johnson said, which, you know, is not a bad point. said, well, Texas, the governor of Texas bust those, you know, bust the migrants here. we didn't ask for them to come. He bust them here.

which, which may be true, but the reason they got bussed there because you're a sanctuary city. So you're saying by being that, you know, come one, come all. and so, you know, so I think he, he, did the best he could do. he didn't fall flat on his face. He didn't give them a lot of talking points to go back and, and headlines.

HG Hampton (39:45.561)
You know, he stuck to the script and he survived and I hope for the best, you know, I want to see the city improve.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (39:52.942)
What do you think? That's Jacob. Fair? Foul?

Jacob Kaplan (39:55.981)
well, I'll call foul on, think, I think Brandon Johnson was fair in the way that he dealt with it. think that I'll call foul on the Republicans for calling this hearing to basically just get their clips and, you know, social media clips berating, Democratic mayors. mean, it was all just for show. And, I will push back a bit. you know, the mayor's approval rating aside, I think that, the polling I've seen has shown that people are broadly in support of sanctuary city as a policy when they understand what it is.

And, know, being a sanctuary city, all it means is that, and we've had this since the 1980s, it started under Mayor Harold Washington in the 80s, is that we don't use law enforcement resources locally to do immigration enforcement. So it doesn't mean that ICE and federal immigration agents can't operate in the city. They're not, we can't stop them from doing that. It just means we're, when we're a city that's so strapped with police and, and having to deal with so many different issues, we don't want our police focused on.

trying to find people that may not be here with documents or working to try to deport a bunch of people that are here with federal immigration officials. Again, the feds come in and do what they want. That's allowed, that's legal. They can, as long as they're following the constitution, they can do their immigration action. So I think that's what, when you explain what that, that's what sanctuary city means, people are broadly in support of it still. And I agree that it was, you know, these were migrants that were not our choice. They were bussed to us.

I think in a ridiculous fashion by the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. And then we had to scramble and figure out ways to support these migrants and ways to find housing and things like that. So it was done as a stunt. And unfortunately, people that had the most to lose were the ones that were stuck in the middle of it. And it created a huge humanitarian issue. But I think that ultimately the mayor's explanation of it at

in front of Congress, I think kind of took some of the Republicans by surprise, the fact that he was well prepared. He spent a lot of time preparing for the hearing and he didn't take the bait. And I think that even those that may have issues with the mayor or don't support everything that he does, still saw him representing our city up there. And I think he did good job of that.

HG Hampton (42:12.453)
You all right?

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (42:14.828)
Yeah, I thought you did a good job as well. All right.

HG Hampton (42:19.075)
I think did the best he could do. I I thought it was going to be an S show, but it wasn't. He hung in there.

Jacob Kaplan (42:25.935)
Yeah.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (42:28.334)
We always want to prevent that. What about you, Halil? What about the second topic, Trump and his illegal protests?

HG Hampton (42:38.629)
Well, I'm a first amendment guy. protests are, well, you have the right to protest, right? That's in the first amendment, freedom of speech. And there's a right to protest. Going back to the Vietnam war, student protests have always kind of been a force that has checked government. know, in Vietnam, talking to my dad about that, he would say the student protest.

you know, really caused the war to stop. And you see that you saw that during the Iraq war. And so I'm in support of student protests. I think these student protests are, it's the wars that are going on now, be it Ukraine, Russia, or Palestine and Israel. Anytime you see those kinds of conflicts where you have that many casualties.

you're going to see young people protesting. Young people are courageous, you know, and they don't have, you know, people my age will say, well, I don't want to really say much because I don't want to, you know, I've got a mortgage to pay and I got a family to take care of. So older adults tend to be a little more quiet in their protesting where students are like, no, we're going balls to the wall. And so I support student protests.

Now that doesn't mean you get to, get violent and, or, or, you know, if you have kids trying to get to class and you're stopping them, you know, you can't, I don't support that, right? You gotta do it in a way that's, that's legal. So, but protests are meant to be disruptive. that's the point of a protest. so.

I think, you know, I think Trump's on the wrong side of deporting this, this kid. Again, I don't know about the specific person that's at issue here. haven't like deep dived into what he did, who he is, but from what I understand, he's got a green card. He's here legally. I heard some reporting on it and I didn't hear anything like, very illegal. He had done assaulting anybody or.

HG Hampton (45:01.593)
burning down things or I didn't see that. So, I think this is a political move for Trump. he's got a large, his financial backers are sort of the right wing Israel lobby. And so he's, he's sort of cowtowing to them to say, yeah, I'm going to put a stop to this. You know, they, before this, before Trump was in office, the,

The mayor, I mean, I'm sorry, the president of Harvard got kicked out for this same issue, the black woman, right? This is during the Biden administration and several university presidents got removed because they wouldn't stop the protest, I guess, concerning the Israel Gaza war. And so this is just sort of an extension of that. Now you have.

this young person, but so I would say foul to whatever, are they prosecuting him or something, or trying to deport him? I'd say foul. it's only, and in closing, I'll say, this is only going to lead to more protest. Right? So if I'm advising Trump, I'd say, look, if you do this, these kids aren't going to stop, right? They're just going to galvanize and it's going to grow. So that's not the way to handle it. So I'd say foul on that.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (46:28.174)
Alright, what do you say Jacob, fair or foul?

Jacob Kaplan (46:31.491)
Foul, absolutely. I also agree. I'm very troubled by what's happening and the First Amendment implications. think no matter where you stand on the Israel-Gaza war, you still should stand up for people's rights to peacefully protest and speak their mind. Even

people that are here and aren't citizens, but are here legally with a green card, they still have rights as well. They still have first amendment rights. So the fact that they're trying to deport this student and strip his citizenship or snub citizenship, the green card, because of some sense that he was too pro-Palestinian or said things that were insensitive. I think that's wrong. He didn't commit any crime that I'm aware of. And, again, not speaking to whatever he said or spoke about, I still think his first amendment rights to do that. So.

I think it's a very slippery slope and I hope that people do disagree with what's happening and I know there some protests just a couple days ago about it. I'm sure there'll be more. But also what's going on with the stripping of funding to lot of these universities like Columbia under the guise of saying that these protests got out of hand and we can't have this sort of...

thing going on in these campuses. mean, really what they're doing like at Columbia is just stripping a whole bunch of money for research and all sorts of areas and important medical research, things that have nothing to do with what's going on in the Israel Gaza war. So it seems to me it's just an excuse for what the Republicans and Trump in general are trying to do, which is kind of dismantle all federal funding to universities and all the things that, in my opinion, make this country great, which is the fact that we're leaders in this type of research.

HG Hampton (48:06.725)
Well, they were doing that under Biden too, know, the stripping of funding and removing the presidents and the, you know, these financial backers were really involved in.

Jacob Kaplan (48:18.943)
It started to agree there, but I would say that Trump is trying to accelerate it to the next level. And this goes right along with trying to dismantle the Department of Education and just go down the line. this is, again, it's just, it's very troubling. And again, I'm incredibly troubled by what's going on with deporting somebody who did nothing illegal, at least that I'm aware of. That's very troublesome and it's just the first of many to come if people don't push back.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (48:49.122)
Yeah, I 100 % agree. I think the implications go of this executive order go far beyond the Palestine movement. It encourages, you know, government agencies to find ways to target any dissent from Trump's agenda. think they did a similar action with taking against the University of Maine, wasn't it, where they were stripped of about $30 million in federal funding.

And I think that was under the guise that they were unhappy with their investigation on the university's policies towards transgender athletes. And they also wanted to investigate and make sure that they were maintaining same sex separated facilities. So I definitely agree with you both that this is a slippery slope. So I would say foul on my part as well too. And it's something that

We'll definitely have to watch because I'm sure that this will continue to be in the news within the next coming week. So we shall see. All right.

Sylvia Coulon Hampton (49:52.49)
Well, that sums up today's episode. Thanks to everyone for tuning in to this month's episode of your morning legal briefing. I hope everyone goes out and attends the road to the road. Again, that event is in March 29th from two until five p.m. at the Mid-American Carprinters Chicago training facilities. And make sure to tune in to next month's episode of our podcast.

Make sure to like, subscribe, and listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Also, you can visit our website, Hampton and Hampton LLP, if you're in need of a personal injury, estate planning, or nursing home negligence. Attorney, our team is always here to help. Thanks, everyone.

Jacob Kaplan (50:39.641)
Thank you.

HG Hampton (50:40.367)
Thank you. Thanks, Jacob.