The lady at left in the picture below is the late State Sen. Lottie Holman O'Neill (R-Downers Grove) (1878-1967) Lottie was a friend of my mother columnist Mary Gurrie Rhoads. At her right in the picture is the late Phyllis Schlafly sitting with Lottie at the 1956 Republican National Convention. In this picture Lottie was 78 and Phyllis was 34.
Lottie was a conservative Republican who was the first woman elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1922 and the first woman elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1950. My youngest sister just gave me a letter from Lottie dated Sept. 5, 1962 that shares Lottie's concerns about the Judicial Blue Ballot that was set for a ratification vote in November 1962.
Among her many concerns about a judicial retention ballot were "the turning over of government functions to appointees rather than elected public servants." She also writes that there is a danger in "Life tenure of judges through the use of the YES and NO ballot, with no opposing candidate. This is the method used by dictators to insure retention in office."
Lottie was right in her prophetic warnings about judicial retention ballots. Only very rarely in the 57 years since the Blue Ballot passed have judges been voted out of office by getting enough no votes. But the norm is that the Illinois Bar routinely urges a yes vote to retain judges who get very little hard scrutiny of their records in office.
Lottie O'Neill died in 1967 at the age of 88 after 45 years of service in the Illinois General Assembly in both the House and Senate.
There is a bronze statue of her today in the rotunda of the Illinois State Capitol building in Springfield.
