In an unusual move, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke's campaign will return most of her $1.5 million war chest to contributors.

Burke campaign officials said Friday that many of the contributions came in before donors knew she would be running unopposed for the high court in the Feb. 5 Democratic primary.

"This could have been an extremely costly race if she had an opponent," said attorney John B. Simon, chairman of Burke's campaign committee. "When that didn't materialize...she thought it was appropriate for this money to be returned."

Burke's campaign, however, plans to spend an unspecified amount on an advertising campaign on behalf of all of the Democratic judicial candidates slated by the party to run in Cook County, Simon said.

Burke's husband, powerful Chicago Ald. Ed Burke (14th), is chairman of the judicial slating committees of the county's Democratic Party.

Anne Burke was appointed to the state Supreme Court after Justice Mary Ann McMorrow retired in July 2006.

Burke campaign officials said she raised about $1.7 million in the last year. State filings for the first half of 2007 showed contributions from a parade of legal and business heavyweights. Contributions for the second half of 2007 haven't yet been made public.

The records for the first half of 2007 show that John Canning Jr., chairman of Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, contributed $50,000 to Burke, while Arlington Park chairman Richard Duchossois, his family and company gave $30,000.

Former U.S. Atty. Dan Webb donated $25,000 to Burke, and his fellow Winston & Strawn attorneys added at least another $19,250.

Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf chipped in $10,000, and a half-dozen members of the Pritzker family contributed $1,000 each.

Politicians sometimes return individual donations to avoid a scandal but rarely send back donations in bulk, said Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

"I am hard-pressed to think of a similar situation," Redfield said. "It is really unusual for people to return campaign contributions to the donors, unless the donors are under indictment."

Instead, politicians with extra money usually transfer it to other candidates or perhaps donate it to charity, Redfield said.

After the campaign pays a share of the advertising campaign for the Democratic-slated judicial candidates, two-thirds of what remains would be returned to Burke's contributors, Simon said.

The remaining one-third would be kept for any expenses in the months leading up to the general election, Simon said, but if Burke faces no opposition then, that money would be returned to contributors too, Simon said.

No Republican has announced for the race.

Simon said the campaign stopped seeking donations in November and turned previously scheduled fundraisers into "meet and greet" events.

Under ethics rules, judicial candidates are not supposed to know who donates to their campaigns, even though the information is publicly available at the Illinois State Board of Elections' Web site.

Burke meets people at receptions, Simon said, but "she does not know who gave her money and she does not know what they gave."

mjhiggins@tribune.com