Attorney ‘dares’ AG to transfer challenge to Illinois’ venue-restriction law

[June 10, 2023]  By Greg Bishop | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – A new law limiting where citizens can bring some legal actions against the state to Sangamon or Cook counties already faces a legal challenge. The attorney who filed the case in Madison County dares the Illinois Attorney General to transfer the case, calling the new law “blatantly unconstitutional.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed House Bill 3062 Tuesday. Effective immediately, the law restricts where citizens can bring legal challenges against state laws or executive actions to only two of the state’s 102 counties. The measure impacts state courts, not federal courts.

Supporters of the bill said it will help save resources of the Illinois Attorney General's Office in defending claims where plaintiffs shop for a favorable venue. Opponents called it tyranny.

Attorney Thomas Maag said the law is “blatantly unconstitutional.”

“Persons have rights to access to the courts, obviously this is intended to make access to the courts inconvenient and difficult,” Maag told The Center Square.

Maag said he already has a legal filing in Madison County challenging Illinois’ Firearm Owner ID card law.

“And in Count II of the case, put in a direct challenge to this statute and dutifully filed it in the plaintiffs home county, which is not Cook County and not Sangamon County, and we dare the attorney general to transfer the case.”

The case, Gary E. Myers v. Brendan Kelly, challenges a prohibition of nonviolent cannabis users getting a Firearm Owner ID Card. The FOID card is required in Illinois to buy and own firearms and ammunition.

Attorney Thomas Maag
Greg Bishop / The Center Square

Count II challenges the enactment of House Bill 3062, saying it violates federal due process rights in the Fifth and 14th amendments.

“By making forums far off and inconvenient, and with possibly no connection to the dispute, the challenged statute substantially increases the likelihood of an inability to bring a successful constitutional challenge, especially by the infirm and impoverished, the weakest among us,” Maag argued.

Maag had previously sued the state over the ban on semi-automatic firearms and magazines. His case was the first to challenge the state law, first filed in Crawford County but then transferred to federal court.

Attorney Thomas DeVore, who sued Pritzker over COVID-19 mandates and also secured temporary restraining orders for his clients against the gun ban, argued people deserve to file claims against the government where they live.

“Why on earth would I have clients in Effingham County go file a case in Cook County about anything?” DeVore told WMAY. “Whether it’s a constitutional challenge, or to the governor’s authority or the legislature’s, why would I file their case up there? You would file that case where they live, where they elect judges, where those judges are responsible for the people that are bringing the challenges and the cases to court because that is what the Illinois and U.S. constitutions provide.”

DeVore said he is planning a lawsuit challenging the venue-restriction law and said the lawsuit will not be filed in Sangamon or Cook counties.

Greg Bishop reports on Illinois government and other issues for The Center Square. Bishop has years of award-winning broadcast experience and hosts the WMAY Morning Newsfeed out of Springfield.