Policymakers missed a rare chance to examine how moneyed interests influence state judicial elections when State Farm agreed last week to pay $250 million to settle a civil racketeering case, lawyers involved in the case and academic observers told Bloomberg Law.
The unprecedented lawsuit alleged State Farm and a web of trade associations secretly conspired in 2004 to elect Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier in the most expensive state supreme court contest in U.S. history, and then lied about the scheme so the justice wouldn’t have to recuse himself from the appeal of a $1.05 billion judgment ...