Editorial tells it like it is in 3rd District Appellate race

The Times Weekly, a paper covering the Joliet, Romeoville, Lockport area published a powerful argument for why Judge Vicki Wright is the clear choice for 3rd District Appellate Judge. Namely, her opponent is unqualified, inexperienced, and his candidacy is nearly entirely funded by groups whose purpose is to place corporate friendly judges on the bench.

The paper had a hard time getting anyone to provide Mike Powers background, with good reason, it turns out.

The information gathered on Judge Powers explained the difficulty that was encountered getting data on his judicial history. Judge Powers was appointed as a "Branch" judge December 30th, 2004. That means Judge Powers has served as an Associate Judge for one year and ten months.

With only 22 months of experience Michael Powers is running for appellate court judge who sits in legal judgment of decisions made in other courts by judges having decades of experience hearing cases in those courts. Additional information came by phone from a judicial office and the Times Weekly learned that Judge Powers travels among several Will County towns and hears "mostly" traffic and ordinance cases or "occasionally" uncontested divorce matters.

Judge Powers wants to become an Appellate Court Justice and his credentials do not include any felony experience, no murder, no attempted murder, no abuse matters or for that matter anything other than traffic ordinance or divorce cases as a judge.

That created more mystery because Powers is getting strong campaign support from many people for an Appellate seat that he is not qualified to hold according to the information received.

Inquiries related to his campaign indicate that the support Judge Powers is receiving actually had little to nothing to do with his experience but perhaps more so to his willingness to resolve judicial matters having strong implications in favor of big business.