On August 23, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a decision leaving in place a lower court ruling that blocked a change in the state’s election law which would have kept fourteen candidates off the ballot in the 2024 general election.
On May 3, Governor Pritzker signed new “anti-slating” legislation into law, changing the rules for ballot access in the middle of an election cycle. P.A. 103-0586 was introduced to the General Assembly through a controversial “gut and replace” maneuver and signed into law less than two days after its first appearance. The new legislation ended the practice of “slating,” through which political parties could nominate (or “slate”) a candidate for General Assembly to appear on the general election ballot if no one had run in the primary.
When P.A. 103-0586 was hastily signed into law, Illinois officials claimed the legislation was an “ethics” reform to keep government officials accountable to voters and to prevent political party insiders from advancing their preferred candidates without the input of everyday Illinoisans. But Illinois Democrats enacted the law, on a purely partisan basis, to take effect immediately—in the middle of an election cycle in which Republican candidates had already been nominated and candidates seeking to be slated had begun gathering voters’ signatures. If P.A. 103-0586 had not been challenged in court, the law would have prevented over a dozen candidates from appearing on the November ballot, leaving Illinois voters with only one candidate to vote for in their legislative elections.
On May 10, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit against the Illinois State Board of Elections on behalf of multiple potential candidates for General Assembly seats in the November 2024 election. The lawsuit argued that the Board’s mid-cycle rule change violated the candidates’ constitutional right to access the ballot.
On May 22, the Sangamon County Circuit Court in Springfield sided with the Liberty Justice Center and issued a preliminary order to prevent the state from enforcing P.A. 103-0586 against the plaintiffs while the lawsuit continued. That order became permanent on June 5, when the court held that enforcing the provision of P.A. 103-0586 that eliminates “slating” for General Assembly races in the 2024 election against the plaintiffs is unconstitutional.
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.
In today’s decision, the Illinois Supreme Court announced that two of the court’s seven justices had recused themselves from hearing the case, and the remaining justices could not reach a four-justice majority for a decision as the state constitution requires.
As a result, the lower court’s injunction against the anti-slating provision will remain in place.
“We applaud the courts’ decision to uphold candidates’ rights and strike down Illinois legislators’ partisan attempt to exclude their political opponents from the ballot,” said Jeffrey Schwab, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center.
The Liberty Justice Center’s legal filings in Collazo v. Illinois State Board of Elections are available here. The Illinois Supreme Court’s ruling is available here.