Across the state, candidates and election officials alike continue to wait on the Illinois Supreme Court to weigh in on the fate of a constitutionally questionable state ballot access law that critics say amounted to a blatant move by Gov. JB Pritzker and his Democratic allies in Springfield to block Republicans from the ballot this fall.
The ruling, when it comes, could decide whether a slew of Republican candidates are kicked off the ballot and their Democratic opponents enjoy a free ride back into the state legislature.
But, in one closely watched contest in particular, an Illinois elections hearing officer has recommended the Illinois State Board of Elections allow Edwardsville's former police chief to square off against a Democratic incumbent state representative in downstate Madison and St. Clair counties, no matter how the Illinois Supreme Court may rule on the fate of the law.
Retired Illinois First DIstrict Appellate Justice Mathias Delort
| Facebook.com/IllinoisJudgesAssociation
On Aug. 23, the Illinois State Board of Elections will meet to vote on certifying the ballot for the November general election. That meeting will include votes on a list of objections filed primarily against Republican candidates for the Illinois General Assembly.
At that meeting, the Board will notably vote on whether to sustain an objection against the candidacy of Republican state representative candidate Jay Keeven.
Keeven, the former Edwardsville Police Chief and current Troy city administrator, had filed his nominating petitions to place his name on the ballot to challenge Democratic State Rep. Katie Stuart in the race for the seat in Illinois House District 112. Keeven notably filed his petitions on May 2, one day before Pritzker signed into law new legislation that critics say was an unconstitutional "dirty trick" designed by Democrats to protect their incumbents against Republican challengers this fall.
Republicans have said the law was designed particularly to attempt to protect Stuart against an expected strong challenge from Keeven.
Initially known as Senate Bill 2412, the law rewrote state election rules to block political parties from slating candidates to run for office after the spring primary election, unless they had first run in their party's primary election.
Under the previous rules, parties who had no official nominees for a particular elected office after the primary election had 75 days after the primary election to "slate" candidates to run as the official party nominee in such races. This year, that deadline was to be June 3.
However, six weeks after the March 19 primary, and with just about four weeks until the June 3 deadline, Democrats rushed SB2412 through both houses of the Illinois General Assembly in less than 48 hours and it was signed quickly by Pritzker, upending the candidate nomination process that was already underway.
While the changes would apply to all political parties, if the law were allowed to take effect, it would be particularly harmful to Republicans this fall, as the GOP intended to rely on the former process to ensure candidates could be placed on the ballot to run against Democratic incumbents.
Pritzker described the law as an "ethics reform" measure and Democrats said the law was needed to ensure only primary voters can choose party nominees for seats in the Illinois House and Senate.
Pritzker and the state's Democratic lawmakers, however, took the exact opposite approach a few weeks later, when they rushed to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for Democratic presidential nominee after President Joe Biden announced he was withdrawing from the race for president. Harris has never run in or won a presidential primary election in any state ever.
Concerning the new state law, Republicans said the law amounted to brazen election interference by a partisan supermajority, trampling voters' and candidates' rights under the guise of promoting democracy. They noted the law would ensure at least 53 Democratic incumbents in the State House and State Senate will face no competition this fall.
The law was challenged promptly in court by a group of Republican state legislative candidates seeking to use the apparently defunct slating process to place their names on the ballot this fall to challenge Democratic incumbents in the Chicago area.
In court in Springfield, Sangamon County Circuit Judge Gail Noll ruled the law violated the constitutional rights of voters and candidates. The ruling specifically applied to only 14 Republican candidates from northern Illinois who joined their names to the lawsuit.
Illinois House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch has appealed that ruling directly to the Illinois Supreme Court, asking the high court to agree that judges have no authority to question the ability of state lawmakers to change ballot access rules, even in the middle of an election cycle.
The expected ruling on the appeal from the Illinois Supreme Court could also decide the fate of other candidates statewide.
The final brief in the case was filed before the Illinois Supreme Court on July 8. However, the Democrat-dominated court has yet to issue their ruling in the case more than a month later and with just days remaining before the ballot certification deadline.
In the meantime, however, the Illinois State Board of Elections is moving forward with their duties under the law, including evaluating objections to Keeven and other candidates' nominating petitions.
Those petitions in the state legislative races have asserted the nominating petitions run afoul of the new nominating rules and deadlines set by Democrats under SB2412.
All involved in the ISBE objection hearing process agreed that, if the Illinois Supreme Court upholds Judge Noll's ruling, the objections to the Republican candidates should be overridden.
In the challenge to Keeven's candidacy, an ISBE hearing officer said he believed the state Supreme Court's ruling on the law should not matter one way or the other.
In a report filed with the ISBE, Mathias Delort, a retired Illinois appeals court justice, agreed that Keeven's decision to file his nominating papers on May 2 means his name should be placed on the ballot against Stuart, even if the Illinois Supreme Court declares SB2412 constitutional.
In filings before the ISBE, prominent Democratic elections law attorney Michael J. Kasper - who also is representing Welch in the SB2412 appeal before the Illinois Supreme Court - argued Keeven's candidacy should be blocked, because Keeven is not among the 14 Republicans suing to challenge the law.
Delort, however, said the judge's decision should be irrelevant, because the new law cannot be applied retroactively to strip away his right to seek office when he filed his nominating petitions one day before the law took effect.
Delort's findings, however, are only a recommendation.
A spokesperson for the ISBE said the Board can choose to reject Delort's findings. He said the Board's votes on Keeven's case and other candidate objections could be affected by an Illinois Supreme Court ruling, should it arrive before the Aug. 23 meeting.