Claiming state and city COVID-related activity restrictions make it too difficult to circulate petitions, activists seeking more money for mental health services on Chicago's south and west sides have asked a Cook County judge to order Chicago city election authorities to ease election rules to allow them to place referendums on the ballot this fall.
On July 13, the group known as the Coalition to Save our Mental Health Centers filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against the members of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
In the complaint, the Coalition said it is seeking to place referendums on the ballots in the Chicago neighborhoods of Humboldt Park/West Town and Bronzeville. The referendums would be brought to the voters in those neighborhoods under the 2012 state law known as the Community Expanded Mental Health Services Act, which allows “voters of a territory within a municipality with a population of more than 1 million … to expand the availability of mental health services to an additional population of mentally ill residents.”
Chicago is the only city in Illinois with more than 1 million residents. For the purposes of the law, “territories” include any “geographical contiguous areas with a population of 75,000-250,000.”
Should they be successful, the referendums would require the city to set aside funds “for an Expanded Mental Health Services Program” and “establish a Governing Commission” to administer the program “with a goal to expand and extend mental health services to mentally ill residents of those communities who need the assistance of their communities in overcoming or coping with mental or emotional disorders.”
Typically, such a referendum would require the Coalition to collect petitions that include signatures from a number of voters equal to at least 8% of the total votes cast in each of those neighborhoods in 2018, the last gubernatorial election.
In Bronzeville, this would amount to about 2,715 signatures. And in Humboldt Park/West Town, they would have needed to collect about 3,864 signatures.
However, the Coalition said the anti-COVID-19 measures put into place by Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot have made it too difficult for them to collect that number of signatures before the required filing date. They particularly noted they prefer to make use of “larger group gatherings” to collect signatures, all of which have been banned by the city and state.
“The typical process that the Coalition uses to gather signatures for initiative such as these has been upended by the COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the State and the City of Chicago,” the complaint said.
They asked the court to issue an injunction barring election authorities from enforcing the ballot petition rules, and allowing them to place their referendums on the ballot.
“Under the current circumstances, the Plaintiff and Illinois voters are forced to choose between their health and safety, and their rights to petition and vote,” the Coalition said in its complaint. “Reforms and modifications to Illinois’s initiative referendum election procedures in light of the COVID-19 pandemic are appropriate and necessary.”
They are represented in the action by attorneys William E. Walsh and Clay B. Wortham, of Dentons US LLP, of Chicago.
Courts in Illinois have already handled a number of similar challenges to election ballot access rules. For instance, a federal court granted the Libertarian and Green parties’ request to allow easier access for third-party and independent candidates onto the ballot, over the objections of the Illinois State Board of Elections. The ISBE has been represented in that action by attorneys known to be political allies of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who is chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party.
Also, a federal appeals court has denied a request by a group represented most prominently by Democratic former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, seeking to relax state ballot access rules to place a constitutional amendment before voters. That amendment would require Illinois state lawmakers to vote on legislation proposing “stronger ethical standards for Illinois public officials.”