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It's election month, baby —March 17th is less than 30 days away and coming in hot.

If you haven't looked at your ballot yet — especially the judicial section — you're not alone. Nobody else has, either. Including, apparently, the candidates.

Let's get into it.

3 Headlines:

1. Nobody Wants to Be a Cook County Judge (And That's a Huge Problem)

Injustice Watch: For the second straight primary, more than half of Cook County circuit court races are uncontested. Just 45 candidates are running for 28 seats. Sixteen of those races have exactly one candidate. Not a single Republican filed. The Democratic Party slated just five candidates.

 Use the Injustice Watch election guide to look up your ballot — it's the best resource available.

Why It Matters: These are $258,000-a-year jobs with extraordinary power — who goes to prison, who keeps their kids, who holds a driver's license. The Cook County Democratic Party has made competition structurally difficult (party leaders have historically worked to eliminate challengers to their picks), bar association scrutiny has scared off some candidates, and running costs real money. Don’t let the bench increasingly populated by whoever shows up.

2. Preckwinkle vs. Reilly:

Sun-Times: Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) is making the most serious run at Toni Preckwinkle in her 16-year tenure as Cook County Board President. The primary is March 17 — Preckwinkle's 79th birthday. Reilly, a close Rahm ally and self-styled moderate who represents Downtown, is hammering her over the Tyler Technologies disaster: an 11-year, multi-million dollar property tax system upgrade that still doesn't work, causing late tax bills that forced CPS to take out $120 million in short-term loans — which taxpayers are now covering in interest.

Reilly is also the alderman who, in September 2024, posted a picture of a pager with the caption "Mazol tov" (misspelled) after the Israeli pager attacks killed 14 people and wounded hundreds in Lebanon.

Preckwinkle hasn't raised the county's property tax share in 16 years, the pension fund is at 66% (double some of the city's funds), and the county has received four bond rating upgrades since 2021 while Chicago drowns in debt. She's also eliminated $600 million in medical debt, helped end cash bail, and launched guaranteed income programs.

Why It Matters: Preckwinkle runs a progressive operation with real fiscal discipline — a rare combination. Reilly wants "Cook County services for Cook County residents" and pre-ranking medical services to keep or cut. But he won't say what he'd cut, deferring to the health system. The county's $10 billion budget, its jail, its public health system, and its court infrastructure are all on the ballot.

3. The ICE Sighting Page Is Suing Back

Block Club: Kae Rosado, the Cicero jewelry seller who created "ICE Sighting-Chicagoland" — a Facebook group that grew to nearly 100,000 members during Operation Midway Blitz — has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against AG Pam Bondi and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem for pressuring Facebook into killing the page.

Laura Loomer tagged Noem and Bondi in an X post on October 12 claiming the group was "getting people killed." Bondi's DOJ contacted Meta. The next day, Facebook disabled the group — despite having only flagged five posts in its entire history, none of which were created by Rosado or her moderators. Bondi literally took credit on X. FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) is bringing the suit in the Northern District of Illinois, also representing the creator of the "Eyes Up" app, which Apple removed from the App Store under similar pressure.

Why It Matters: This is the legal test case for whether the federal government can lean on Big Tech to silence community self-defense networks. But the First Amendment question is pretty obvious: citizens have the right to share information about public law enforcement activity.

Is the "Progressive Municipal Left" Having a Moment — or Is This Just Vibes?

Nithya Raman, DSA-backed LA City Councilmember, entered the LA mayor's race three hours before the filing deadline. California YIMBY said their networks "lit up with excitement." The framing is inevitable: the progressive municipal left is on the march.

But here's the thing the LA Times flagged that most coverage is skipping: Raman's actual record isn't that different from Karen Bass's. Her stances on homelessness, transit, and immigration enforcement overlap significantly with the incumbent she just betrayed. Nine of her council colleagues immediately re-endorsed Bass. Even fellow DSA member Hugo Soto-Martinez said he was "caught off-guard by her last-minute maneuver."

The gap between "being progressive" and "wielding progressive power effectively" is enormous. And that gap is where cities actually get governed, or don't.

2 Red Flags

🚨 Australia Responded to a Mass Shooting by Tightening Gun Laws in Weeks.

The Bondi Beach shooting in December — 15 people killed at a Hanukkah celebration — was the deadliest attack in Australia in 30 years. Within weeks, the Australian parliament passed sweeping new gun legislation: a buyback scheme, stricter licensing, citizenship requirements for firearms importation. The vote was 96-45.

I'm not putting this here to do the "why can't America" routine. I'm putting it here because the speed with which a functioning democracy can respond to a crisis — when the institutional incentives are aligned and the political will exists — is a useful benchmark for evaluating our own institutions. When Chicago can't get a bus-only lane approved in less than five years, or when Cook County's property tax system takes 11 years and still doesn't work, it's worth asking: is the problem complexity, or is it that someone benefits from the delay?

🚨 March 17 Is in 28 Days

Seriously. Look at your ballot. The judicial races are the ones most likely to directly affect your life, and they're the ones with the least information, the least competition, and the least attention. Injustice Watch does the best work on this — enter your address, check the bar association ratings, and at minimum don't vote for anyone with unanimous "Not Recommended" ratings.

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Rev. Jesse Jackson, 1941–2026. The man behind Operation Breadbasket, Rainbow PUSH, two presidential campaigns, and Harold Washington announcing his candidacy — died Tuesday at 84. Read Natalie Moore's WBEZ obituary.

That’s it this week.