Judge considering whether slated candidates can appear on November
ballot
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[June 04, 2024]
By HANNAH MEISEL
Capitol News Illinois
hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com
A Sangamon County judge is weighing whether to block a new state law
that bans the long-practiced tradition of political parties slating
candidates for a general election after sitting out of a primary race.
Democrats who control the General Assembly pushed the measure through
the legislative process and Gov. JB Pritzker signed it into law in a
matter of days last month, arguing that slating is unfair to voters who
didn’t get a say in a primary contest. Several would-be Republican
candidates then sued over the law, claiming it’s unfair to ban the
practice in the middle of an election cycle.
Now, the dispute is in the hands of Sangamon County Judge Gail Noll, who
heard two hours of arguments over the case on Monday, which was also the
last day slated candidates were able to file their nominating petitions
under the old law. Noll last week ordered the State Board of Elections
to keep accepting the petitions while the case plays out, which the
board had already been doing.
During Monday’s hearing, attorney Jeffrey Schwab said his clients – four
Republican candidates from Chicago and its suburbs – weren’t arguing
that the law itself is unconstitutional, but that its application to the
current election cycle is.
“It’s unreasonable to change the law in the middle of the game,” he
said. “It’s, of course, extremely unreasonable for them to have known
that a law was going to be passed and enacted and go into effect before
the timeline that they had to submit their petitions today.”
When the petition filing window closed at 5 p.m. Monday, 16 candidates
filed petitions to get on the November ballot, including the four
plaintiffs in the case. All 16 were Republicans.
Though the lawsuit was only filed against the Board of Elections and
Attorney General Kwame Raoul, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch sought
to intervene in the case. Democratic election law attorney Mike Kasper
argued on Welch’s behalf that the law was a boon to democracy because
candidates used the slating process to escape a tough primary battle.
“It not only encourages and empowers independent and third-party
candidates to gain ballot access, it eliminates the party bosses, as
they’ve been called, from this process,” Kasper, a longtime lawyer for
former House Speaker Michael Madigan, said during Monday’s hearing over
videoconference.
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The Sangamon County Complex is the venue for a legal challenge to a
new state law that bars parties from placing candidates on the
general election ballot if no candidate ran in the party’s primary.
(Capitol News Illinois file photo)
Schwab, who has sued the state numerous times in his career as an
attorney for the Chicago-based libertarian-leaning Liberty Justice
Center, hit back at Kasper’s claims.
“It’s very weird to say that it somehow empowers voters by giving them
less choice – giving them no Republican candidate in the election,” he
said.
The four plaintiffs in the suit were all designated by their local
parties in March and April, but none of them filed their nominating
petitions before the law, which only applies to General Assembly races,
went into effect.
One of the four – Republican Daniel Behr of Northbrook – claimed he
attempted to file petitions the afternoon before Pritzker signed the
bill into law, but he alleged the Board of Elections Springfield office
closed at 4:30 p.m. that day.
Board spokesperson Matt Dietrich, however, said that seemed unlikely
because “during filing periods we always have somebody there (collecting
petitions) until 5.”
Behr ended up filing them just six minutes after the governor’s
signature was recorded on the bill the morning of May 3.
Monday’s arguments referenced another GOP candidate – Jay Keeven of
Edwardsville – who was able to turn in his nominating petitions the day
before Pritzker signed the law. Keeven is challenging Democratic Rep.
Katie Stuart, also of Edwardsville.
Judge Noll said she would have a written decision “in the next couple of
days.” Meanwhile, Dietrich said the Board of Elections is proceeding as
usual with the one-week period where candidates’ nominating petitions
are challenged, which will conclude at 5 p.m. next Monday, June 10.
Capitol News Illinois is
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It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert
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