Victory for Voters’ Rights: On June 5, an Illinois court ruled that provisions of P.A. 103-0586—a law the Illinois General Assembly and Governor J.B. Pritzker rushed through in May, changing the rules for accessing the ballot in the middle of an active election cycle—violates the constitutional rights of fourteen candidates seeking to access the ballot in the 2024 general election.
Case Background: On May 10, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit against the Illinois State Board of Elections for violating Illinoisans’ constitutional right to vote by repealing a campaign law mid-election.
Prior to this rapid repeal, if no one ran in a political party’s primary election, the party itself could nominate (or “slate”) a candidate, provided the candidate gathered the required number of petition signatures. On May 3, however, Governor Pritzker signed into law P.A. 103-0586, which repealed that provision, effective immediately—targeting only races for the General Assembly while allowing other offices to continue the slating process.
P.A. 103-0586 was signed into law abruptly in the middle of an election season. It was introduced on May 1 through a controversial “gut and replace” maneuver, when legislators replaced the entire text of a dormant, existing bill on another subject—Senate Bill 2412, which previously would have amended the Children and Family Services Act—with text that reformed the Illinois Election Code. The House passed the bill the same day. It was passed by the Senate the following day and signed into law as P.A. 103-0586 by the governor on May 3, less than 48 hours after its contents had been introduced.
The Liberty Justice Center’s lawsuit successfully argued that P.A. 103-0586 violates Illinoisans’ right to vote by changing the rules for ballot access in the middle of an election.
The Liberty Justice Center represented multiple prospective candidates for the November 2024 general election, whose campaigns would have been halted by P.A. 103-0586. Although these candidates began gathering signatures before the repeal was enacted, and before the June 3 deadline for collecting signatures has expired, P.A. 103-0586 prevented them from appearing on the ballot in November.
“P.A. 103-0586 removed the provisions of the Illinois Election Code that would allow candidates to access the ballot, after the process for filling vacancies on the ballot had begun,” said Jeffrey Schwab, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center. “Changing these rules in the middle of the process is a blatant infringement on the fundamental constitutional right to vote, which also protects the right of a candidate to appear on the ballot. There’s no reason why these changes could not have waited until the next election cycle. We urge the Court to halt this repeal and allow this election to continue with the laws that were in force when it began.”
The Liberty Justice Center filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction on Monday, May 13, as part of its lawsuit against the Illinois State Board of Elections. Following oral arguments on May 22 by Senior Counsel Jeffrey Schwab, the Circuit Court for the Seventh Judicial Circuit, Sangamon County, Illinois issued a ruling in favor of the Liberty Justice Center’s clients, Leslie Collazo, Daniel Behr, James Kirchner, and Carl Kunz, granting the requested preliminary injunction.
The injunction halted enforcement of P.A. 103-0586 while litigation continued, allowing the candidates affected by the repeal to proceed with the signature-gathering process and submit their candidacy petitions to the Board of Elections.
On May 31, ten additional candidates affected by P.A. 103-0586’s “slating” repeal joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs alongside the four who initially challenged the law.
In a victory for voters’ rights, the Court made the preliminary injunction permanent on June 5, finding that enforcing the provision of P.A. 103-0586 which eliminates “slating” for General Assembly races in the 2024 election is unconstitutional. The ruling allows the plaintiffs to seek ballot access under the rules that were in place when the election cycle began.
Shortly after the Court issued that ruling, Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives Chris Welch, who had intervened to defend the law, asked the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn it. Welch was not one of the lawsuit’s initial parties but petitioned the court to intervene in the case. The Illinois State Board of Elections and the Attorney General did not join the petition.
On August 23, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a decision leaving the Circuit Court’s injunction against the anti-slating provision in place.
“We applaud the Court’s decision to halt enforcement of the provision of P.A. 103-0586 that prohibited our clients from using the slating process to access the 2024 general election ballot,” said Jeffrey Schwab, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center. “The General Assembly can change the rules for elections, but they can’t do it in the middle of the game to keep challengers off the ballot. We are proud to stand up for these candidates and against yet another scheme to suppress competition in Illinois elections.”
Collazo v. Illinois State Board of Elections was filed in the Circuit Court for the Seventh Judicial Circuit, Sangamon County, Illinois, on May 10, 2024.
Jacob Huebert serves as the president of the Liberty Justice Center. He previously served as the Liberty Justice Center’s Director of Litigation. In that role, he successfully litigated cases to protect economic liberty, free speech and other constitutional rights. Jacob and his work have appeared in numerous national media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Fox News Channel.
Jeffrey M. Schwab is a Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, where he litigates cases to protect the rights to free speech, economic liberty, private property and other Constitutional rights in both federal and state courts across the country.
James McQuaid is a staff attorney at Liberty Justice Center where he assists in cases to protect the rights to free speech, economic liberty, private property, and other Constitutional rights in courts across the country.
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