Gordy Hulten's blog

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At Urbana Rotary today, Tina Gunsales (pictured at right) and Steve Beckett gave a presentation about a fascinating program - the UI Law School Courtwatching program.

It is now clear that unwatched courts can lead to poor advocacy, poor decisions and even at the worst, corruption.  For many years the League of Women Voters of Champaign County  (LWVCC) has organized a courtwatching program to assure the citizenry that its courts are functioning properly and with all necessary resources. For over 15 years, the LWVCC has partnered with the University of Illinois College of Law to provide a constant presence in the state and federal courts in Champaign County.

Each of the students enrolled in the Trial Advocacy course at the College of Law (approximately 130 students in the Fall 2004 semester) is required to spend 12 hours courtwatching for educational purposes related to their enrollment in the course, with the League providing training for the law students. This Report on the 2004-2005 Pilot Phase of the Champaign County Courtwatching Project summarizes the primary findings of the pilot phase of this initiative.

They've looked at their data, done some statistical analysis, and compiled some reports about our court system.  (You can download the reports for 2004 and 2005.)

The program has produced some interesting findings, some of which have recieved substantial local publicity:

1. In the sample size observed during the pilot project, the statistical analysis shows no evidence of bias in the selection of jurors from among those available in the jury pool.

2. In the overwhelming majority of observations, our courtrooms were perceived as places where judges and other participants in proceedings observed decorum and treated one another with respect.

3. There is a significant discrepancy between the demographics of Champaign County and the demographics of those citizens reporting for jury service.

For example, while census data indicate an 11% African-American population for Champaign County, and a 15% African-American population for the cities of Champaign and Urbana, the observed African-American representation in the jury pools at the Champaign County Courthouse is about 6%.

This means, for example, of 17 observed jury trials in the pilot observation period in which the defendants were African-American men, only 4 African-American men and 10 African-American women jurors (out of 252 jurors and alternates for each jury) were seated. Nine other African-American potential jurors were excused in the jury selection of those trials.

They're looking for volunteers who are interested in being trained as courtwatchers.  For more information, please contact League of Women Voters Justice Committee Chair Joan A. Miller.

I'm sure that this is no surprise to the vast majority of you.

But I thought now would be a good time to make it official: I am the creater of the IllinPundit blog, and I'm the person who writes anonymously as IlliniPundit.

Last December, as I was preparing to begin working on Senator Judy Myers' campaign for the State Senate, I decided that to continue to blog here anonymously would have been inappropriate.

I could have deleted the blog. But I didn't want to do that, partly out of vanity, partly because I enjoyed it, but partly because I value the community and the collective intelligence of readers and commenters that gathers here. I think this site, in a small way, is a good thing. So I decided not to shut down the blog.
I could have given the site away to somebody else - but of the handful of prospects with whom I spoke, everybody saw my continued involvement as essential - for technical, advisory, and workload reasons.

Also, I didn't want people to think I was trying to hide something by continuing to blog here anonymously. And I didn't want Myers to be held responsible for every stupid thing I had written anonymously on here (and I wrote some pretty stupid things), before either she or I knew that I would be working for her campaign - especially because she didn't know I was IP, either.

So, I decided upon an inelegant solution: a "handoff" from my pseudonym to a group of authors that included myself and many others. This allowed me to continue to do something I loved, and have enough help that I could concentrate on the campaign, without Myers unfairly being burdened with the posts I'd written anonymously.

Now, for a handful of reasons, I am free to disclose that it really was me, all along.

Why?

Well, because my anonymity is no longer necessary. And because the time has come for some changes here, and some of those changes would have been impossible without knowing who was responsible for executing them. For starters, I'd like to re-emphasize a tone of reasonable discussion rather than a tone of overriding partisanship - a tone for which I, with my constant shilling for Senator Myers, was largely responsible. I'm also discussing ways to make this site less of a voice (or collection of voices) and more of a community. This will continue to be a site with multiple authors, and I'm hopeful to include much more community-created (versus author-created) content in the near future.

As always, if you have ideas, please share them - I certainly don't have all the answers.

And if you have criticism for the way I've handled things, I've earned it and I can handle it, so please share it here or email me.

But right now, it feels awfully good (and awfully nerve-racking) to say, with no small amount of pride, that I am IP, and that IP is back.

Now together, let's make this the best online political community in Illinois. I need your help; I certainly couldn't do it without you.

More evidence that Rep. Nancy Pelosi isn't really interested in "draining the swamp" of Washington corruption:

One of the left's main knocks on President Bush over the years is that he's been too blinded by loyalty and that his administration has suffered from cronyism. Yet here you have the new Speaker of the House, whose drapes haven't even been measured or hung yet, pulling out all the stops to install an ethically-challenged pal for Majority Leader out of blind loyalty and passing over another perfectly competent member (Jane Harman) out of pure pique to turn over the Chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee to a man who was impeached for taking bribes.

I don't think either the national Democrats or the national Republicans have learned the lessons of last week's elections.

Quick, what was the number one issue cited by voters in exit polling?  (Hint: it wasn't Iraq).

The number one issue was corruption.

And yet Pelosi is going all out to support Rep. Murtha despite his history and his avowed opposition to earmarking reform, and the Senate Republicans were dumb enough to support Sen. Trent Lott, who has issues on both race issues and pork, for leadership.

It's both maddeningly stupid and frustratingly disgusting.

I've asked Bill Cleeland, the former spokesman for Judy Myers, former DI columnist, and veteran of several campaigns, to join us here as an author. While Bill is a Republican, he's not a social conservative. He's also very agreeable, a very good writer, and a good friend.

I hope you'll give him a chance before flaming him too badly.
In the future, please direct all questions about the Myers campaing to Mr. Cleeland. (Just kidding - old habits die hard.)

I know this is bringing up an issue that almost everyone is tired of discussing, but:

A district judge has granted a preliminary injunction to stop the NCAA from banning the University of North Dakota from hosting a postseason game because of its "Fighting Sioux" nickname, state Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said.

Stenehjem said judge Lawrence Jahnke alerted him to the decision Saturday night. Stenehjem did not know the details.

UND is among a handful of schools with American Indian nicknames and logos that the NCAA considers hostile and abusive. Those schools are barred from holding postseason tournaments, or from using their nicknames during road playoff games.

I would think that the Illinois residents who hate Chief Illiniwek should be feeling pretty good right now. Even if the NCAA loses these lawsuits, the Illinois Senate is now controlled, veto-proof, by someone who hates the Chief as much as anybody. And I don't know how Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi feels about the Chief, but I'd venture to guess that she's going to be less likely than current Speaker Dennis Hastert (an Illinoisan) to call legislation authored by Rep. Tim Johnson designed to reign in the NCAA.

So, given that, why is NCAA action even necessary? Why can't the anti-Chief activists get their views through an Illinois legislature that is both anti-UIUC generally and is most probably anti-Chief specifically?

(Has Senator-elect Mike Frerichs ever taken a position on Chief Illiniwek?)

Has anyone been having any problems late yesterday or so far today?  Traffic has settled down to it's pre-election levels, which helps, but this email from yesterday may explain more:

I have not heard a peep from anyone about who will be the new Champaign County Auditor after Mike Frerichs enters the State Senate in January.

I suppose much depends on who will be Champaign County Board Chairman (the vacancy will be filled by the Chair) in January.

Let me just toss a name out there without any basis whatsoever:  Patricia Avery.

Any other ideas or gossip?

Tom Kacich writes:

Myers got 58.45 percent in the city of Danville. Her individual precincts counts were higher, in most cases, than Rick Winkel four years ago. (In Danville 1, for example, she got 338 votes to the 273 Winkel got four years ago). That was a good showing. But it wasn't enough.

And she got only 54.88 percent in those areas of Vermilion County outside of Danville.

Meanwhile, Frerichs got 59.75 percent in Champaign, 67.71 percent in Urbana and 43.1 percent in the "rural/suburban" areas of Champaign County. Although that doesn't sound impressive, it's almost 10 percentage points better than Dan McCollum did in the same area against Winkel in 2002.

The Repubs I spoke with are baffled by Myers' support in Vermilion County. They thought she'd get 60 to 65 percent.

Without getting into too much detail, the support for Myers in Danville and Vermilion County was very, very disappointing.  Myers actually did about 600 votes better (in terms of margin) than I thought she would do in Champaign County, but we did about 2,000 votes worse in Danville/Vermilion.

I've been talking with several people about Illinipundit.com, and we've been discussing the future of this site.  Inevitably, the questions we ask are:

1. What should we do with this site?
2. How can it better provide information, analysis and opinions to you?
3. Are there authors that should be added?  Removed?

My "housekeeping" ideas at present are:

1. Find a new host to eliminate the "CPU Usage" errors
2. Diaries?  (still researching to see how this works)
3. Forums/message boards
4. A new template for faster loading and a cleaner look
5. A mobile-friendly template (for handhelds)

I'm only one person, but I think I'd also like to see more discussion of national issues, and more opinion & analysis generally, rather than just straight news.

I'd like to have more local government meetings live-blogged (or post-blogged).

In the future, I'll probably just skip writing about the races on which I'm being paid to consult, rather than bore you to tears by posting press release from my candidates here.

Or, on the other hand, should we just continue with this site as it is?

My goal is to have the major changes completed ASAP, with hiccups eliminated by New Year's.

(Usually, when I post questions like this, I get virtually zero response.  Please, if you're a regular reader here, let me know what you like and don't like.  If you have criticism, we can handle it.  If you think we're doing OK now and don't need to change anything, we'd like to know that, too.)

Sorry, I completely forgot about this.

It looks like the unofficial margin is Mike Frerichs winning over Senator Judy Myers by 517 votes. I'll have more detailed numbers tomorrow or the day after.

I just wanted to say congratulations to Mike and his team, and offer this thread as an opportunity for thoughts, analysis, gloating - please keep it profanity free, but you can personally insult me as much as you like. :-)

To everyone that I worked with in Champaign County and around the state over the past year, I'd like to say, "Thank you."

UPDATE: Here's what I have, unofficially, for each County: (click on the image for a readable version).

Senator Myers won Danville & Vermilion County by 3,088 votes (combined), getting 56.2% to Mike Frerichs' 41.6%.

Frerichs won Champaign County by 3,605 votes, getting 53.3% to Myers' 42.7%.

SEP candidate Joe Parnarauskis got 1,893 votes total, or 3.41%, which I think is too low to legally "establish" the SEP.

I thought Myers would get 60%-plus in Danville/Vermilion. If she'd have gotten 60%, she'd have won.

I'll post my precinct-by-precinct results as soon as I can get the remaining precincts I'm missing from the Vermilion County Clerk.

UPDATE:  Thanks to Matt Gladney for his kind words.  And congratulations to him on winning a seat on the County Board.  I hope he'll live-blog a bunch of meetings.

Results for Champaign County can be found at the Clerk's website here.