MADISON COUNTY-Battle lines were quickly being drawn on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after former appellate court Judge Gordon Maag filed a $110 million defamation suit in Madison County circuit court claiming a pre-election flyer lied about his record and ruined his reputation.

Maag, who was defeated in November by Lloyd Karmeier in the most expensive judicial race in the nation's history, filed the lawsuit, which names the Coalition for Jobs, Growth and Prosperity and its chairman Ronald Gidwitz, along with treasurer Gregory W. Baise as defendants. Additionally, the Illinois chamber of commerce is also named as a defendant. Those two agencies, along with Gidwitz and Baise, supported Karmeier in the bitterly fought election that was marred by negative advertisements from both campaigns.

Maag's attorney, Rex Carr of East St. Louis, called the actions of the Chamber of Commerce and its affiliates "deliberate, malicious and evil" while Edward Murnane, president of the Illinois Civil Justice League, called the lawsuit "laughable." The tort-reform group endorsed Karmeier.

Carr said the lawsuit goes beyond the Maag-Karmeier race.

"This was basically done for the protection of judges all over the United States," Carr said. "What they did to Judge Maag, in essence they told the world that if you don't get along with the chamber of commerce and do what they think is right we can do to you what we did to Judge Maag. And they did it through absolute, outright, uncontradicted lies. If the chamber of commerce can do this to Judge Maag then they can get anybody off the bench. Maag was the only judge that was not retained and the only one that they told out-and-out lies about."

The lawsuit states that the flyer sent out by the two agencies alleged that Maag "let a murderer back on the streets," showed "questionable judgment" and "overturned the conviction of a sexual predator."

The complaint alleges the Coalition for Jobs, Growth and Prosperity, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Gidwitz and Baise published the documents "wrongfully, maliciously and with intent to defame and injure Maag in his reputation."

"If they can get away with interfering with the electoral process this way then the sky is the limit and we don't have an electoral process any longer," Carr said. "Every single case that they mentioned is a lie, every single case. He (Maag) only wrote one of the six decisions involved; can you imagine that?"

Carr said there is "absolutely no doubt" that the tactics employed by the chamber of commerce were geared at the appellate court retention vote and not the Illinois Supreme Court race.

"The purpose was not just to defeat him for the Supreme Court, but it was a deliberate effort to kick him from the appellate bench," Carr said.

Murnane called the lawsuit "silly" and said he was "shocked" that a defeated candidate would resort to filing a lawsuit. Murnane also pointed out the irony involved with the suit being filed in Madison County Circuit Court, recently named the nation's number one "judicial hellhole" by tort reform supporters.

"I think it is very ironic that this election was in part about abuse of the judiciary system in Southern Illinois and this lawsuit is an example of that abuse," Murnane said. "I think it is also ironic that the Maag campaign spread more distortions and untruths than any other campaign that I've ever seen and I've been involved and an activist in campaigns for 35 years."

Murnane said proving the flyer had any bearing on the individuals that voted against retaining Maag as an appellate judge is not possible.

"Even if this was a valid, legitimate suit, how could they prove that the 230,655 people who voted against Gordon Maag's retention were influenced by any single piece of campaign literature or by any newspaper ad without talking to those people?" Murnane said.

Karmeier, a Republican who had been a circuit court judge in Nashville, was sworn in Dec. 6 as a Supreme Court judge from the 5th District, which takes in the 37 southernmost counties in Illinois.

Will the lawsuit filed by Maag change the political landscape and help tone down negative campaigning? Mike Lawrence, director of the SIUC Public Policy Institute, said the lawsuit itself will not make a difference but added that the success of the lawsuit could have a dramatic impact.

"If there is a ruling in favor of Maag that survives the entire judicial review process, then it could certainly impact the way campaigns are run in the future," Lawrence said. "The only way we will see a significant change (is if) Maag wins and wins a substantial award and that award is sustained all the way up through the Illinois Supreme Court."

Like Murnane, Lawrence noted the irony of the lawsuit and its filing location.

"I think it is very ironic," Lawrence said. "This was a campaign, to some degree, that dealt with the number and the kind of lawsuits being filed. I think the negative campaign and now this lawsuit calls attention to the fact that we need to stop electing judges in Illinois, especially at the appellate and Supreme Court levels."

writeon1@shawneelink.net 618-625-2006