A state appeals panel has granted McHenry County township road districts another opportunity to argue Illinois state lawmakers violated the state constitution by passing a law allowing voters to dissolve certain townships.
The Nunda and McHenry township road districts sued McHenry County in September 2019, challenging a month-old provision in the state's Township Code giving McHenry County voters the power to dissolve a township through a referendum. The law, known as Article 24, requires the process to start with either a township board resolution or a voter petition.
The county moved to dismiss the claim, arguing no one had started the process to dissolve either townships, and that the county wasn't a proper defendant, because it would only serve as a passive receiver of assets from any townships or districts dissolved under the law. The road districts countered by saying the Illinois Attorney General’s Office hadn’t indicated it would intervene on their claim of unconstitutionality. McHenry County Judge Thomas Meyer granted the county’s motion to dismiss.
The road districts amended their complaint in January 2020, adding Gov. J.B. Pritzker as a defendant and seeking a judgment invalidating Article 24 because it was limited only to one county, and couldn’t be connected to a legitimate statewide interest. They further noted the Nunda Township Board had approved a dissolution referendum, while McHenry Township residents filed a dissolution petition.
In March 2020 Meyer again granted the county’s motion to dismiss, saying it was not yet a proper party. Later that month, voters in both townships rejected dissolution referenda. In April 2020, McHenry Township filed a petition to intervene as a defendant, and in July it moved for dismissal because the complaint undermined the right to self-governance. Also in April, the McHenry Township Road District voluntarily dismissed its claim.
In August 2020, the state moved to dismiss the complaint as moot because the referendums failed, and alternatively that Article 24 did have a statewide interest, because allowing voters to dissolve those townships could reduce property taxes through consolidation. Ultimately Meyer sided with Pritzker and McHenry Township, rejecting the road districts' argument the case should proceed because of the public interest in the law.
Nunda Township Road District took the case to the Illinois Second District Appellate Court, which ruled Nov. 16. Justice Liam Brennan wrote the opinion; justices Kathryn Zenoff and Joseph Birkett concurred.
“Distilled to its essentials, the governor’s argument is that, because the legislation targets only McHenry County townships, it lacks sufficient breadth to have a significant effect on the public as a whole,” Brennan wrote. “To some extent, this argument implicates the very question raised in the underlying case, i.e., whether Article 24 is unconstitutional special legislation in the first place. While we do not decide today whether Article 24 is unconstitutional legislation, we reject the governor’s argument that Article 24’s limited reach to McHenry County renders this constitutional issue insufficient to satisfy the public nature criterion in this case.”
The panel further said whether Article 24 passes constitutional muster “encompasses a question of election law,” an inherent public concern, and that letting a court determine the law’s validity “would provide guidance to townships” going forward. It also agreed with the road district that the issue was likely to recur, given both the March 2020 referenda and a disputed attempt to put the question before McHenry Township voters again that November.
After determining the public interest exception is warranted, the panel reversed Meyer’s dismissal and remanded the complaint for further proceedings.
The Nunda District was represented on appeal by attorneys James G. Militello III and Andrew J. Mertzenich, of Prime Law Group LLC, of Woodstock.