Illinois court race: what it takes to win?

Careful about crossing the Litigation Lobby, cont’d: Dwight Kay, the finance chairman of Republican Lloyd Karmeier’s campaign in the hotly contested race for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court (see Aug. 29, etc.), is crying foul and suing two political consultants over a visit the two paid to the home of Kay’s ex-wife in […]

Careful about crossing the Litigation Lobby, cont’d: Dwight Kay, the finance chairman of Republican Lloyd Karmeier’s campaign in the hotly contested race for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court (see Aug. 29, etc.), is crying foul and suing two political consultants over a visit the two paid to the home of Kay’s ex-wife in which Kay says the two falsely represented themselves as disability investigators and sought to elicit information from her about the couple’s divorce. One of the two consultants, Doug Wojcieszak, heads up a group called Victims and Families United, which is backed by trial lawyers in Illinois’s famed Madison County and promotes their interests. Wojcieszak and co-defendant Tom Denton of Tactical Consulting in Carbondale deny the charges and call the suit politically motivated and an example of hypocrisy (Jim Muir, “Two local men accused of Constitutional rights violations”, Southern Illinoisan, Aug. 12; “Defendants say lawsuit politically motivated”, same date).

Per AP, “Wojcieszak admits visiting Diane Kay on July 13. He said he was looking into Dwight Kay’s legal past since the candidate Kay supports, Karmeier, ‘wants to limit others’ access to the courts. …Wojcieszak also denies allegations he was behind an incident of garbage rifling last spring outside the Okawville office of Sen. David Luechtefeld, a longtime friend of Karmeier’s and chairman of his campaign.” (Susan Skiles Luke, “Lawyers group to watch judicial election ads”, AP/Chicago Sun-Times, no longer online). Curiously, Wojcieszak “served for a year as the executive director of Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch, a tort-reform group” and later switched sides. (Illinois Times, May 27).

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