Connected Dollars

A-fucking-mazing:

• The judge who’s to decide whether a special prosecutor investigates the Cook County state’s attorney’s office’s handling of a homicide case involving a nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley has contributed $1,450 to the re-election campaign of State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, records show.

  Illinois Supreme Court rules allow such contributions. Still, they are rare. Circuit Judge Michael P. Toomin is among eight Cook County judges who have given Alvarez at least $150 — the minimum amount that’s required to be reported in campaign-finance filings. That’s 2 percent of the 410 sitting judges.

• Toomin — who was assigned the case in December — has contributed to Alvarez four times, most recently in June. He says he has attended campaign fund-raisers for Alvarez and also gave money to her predecessors but that his political contributions won’t affect his decisions in the Koschman case.

  “We live in a political environment,” the judge says when asked about the contributions he made to Alvarez. “Will this affect things? Of course not . . . . It is what it is.”

::cough cough:: bullshit ::cough cough::

So eight judges who rule over points of law and decide rules & procedures for trials contribute to the person whose office brings these cases to the courts?

It'd be at least as interesting to see how many and which defense attorneys contribute to judges campaigns. And would defense attorneys actually contribute to Anita's campaigns also?

Follow the money and be amazed at the connections.