Voters consider ballot questions on reproductive health, tax reform, election interference

[October 11, 2024]  By Andrew Adams

Lawmakers in Illinois are asking voters to weigh in on three hot-button issues on their ballots this year: election interference, income taxes and reproductive health care.

Voters in Illinois are being posed three “advisory” questions that ask voters whether they support a specific policy but aren’t legally binding. Lawmakers may take the results into account when considering what policies to advocate for in future legislative sessions.

The three questions, as they appear on ballots, are:

Should any candidate appearing on the Illinois ballot for federal, State, or local office be subject to civil penalties if the candidate interferes or attempts to interfere with an election worker’s official duties?

Should the Illinois Constitution be amended to create an additional 3% tax on income greater than $1,000,000 for the purpose of dedicating funds raised to property tax relief?

Should all medically appropriate assisted reproductive treatments, including, but not limited to, in vitro fertilization, be covered by any health insurance plan in Illinois that provides coverage for pregnancy benefits, without limitation on the number of treatments?

These questions are being asked because lawmakers passed Senate Bill 2412 in early May, instructing state election officials to add them to ballots.

“All three of the questions deal with issues that are top of mind for voters or are issues that have been reported on in the news media,” bill sponsor Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Swansea, said in an interview this week.

The last time advisory questions were placed on Illinois ballots statewide was in 2014. That year, three questions were posed to voters: one concerning a potential increase to the state’s minimum wage, one concerning whether insurers should be required to cover prescription birth control and one concerning a tax on income over $1 million.

While Hoffman said he has “learned not to predict” how votes like this will go or how they will be used, he said that the 2014 vote “ultimately led to the passage of increasing the minimum wage.”

That measure passed in early 2019 after Gov. JB Pritzker made a personal appeal to lawmakers shortly after taking office.

This year’s advisory questions have generated little in the way of campaigning, but some Illinois politicians have voiced support.

Former Gov. Pat Quinn is touring the state to encourage a “Yes” vote on an increased tax for incomes over $1 million.

“It is important to let folks know that we do have a chance not only to vote for candidates, especially president, but we also have a chance in Illinois to vote on issues, issues that can make a difference in a family budget for years to come,” Quinn said at a Capitol news conference Wednesday.

The referendum, in addition to being similar to an advisory question in 2014, echoes parts of a constitutional amendment that was put to voters in 2020.

That amendment would have repealed the state’s constitutional requirement for a flat income tax rate – a step that would still be necessary to implement the policy described in this year’s advisory question.

When voters went to the polls in 2020, they rejected the amendment – a bruising result for Gov. JB Pritzker, who gave $58 million of his personal fortune to a campaign in favor of the graduated income tax.

Other attempts at ballot measures

Some groups angled to get different questions on the ballot this year to no avail. Parents Matter Coalition, a conservative group launched late last year and backed by former Republican state Rep. Jeanne Ives, ran an unsuccessful signature-gathering campaign for a ballot question concerning parental disclosure for gender-affirming therapy and counseling.

That effort gathered only about 100,000 of roughly 328,000 needed signatures, according to Ives. But the group was ultimately preempted by the legislature because only three advisory questions may appear on a ballot in a given election.

A sample ballot from Danville depicts the advisory questions that will appear on Illinois ballots this year. (Capitol News Illinois image)

At the time SB 2412 passed, Ives called it an “incredibly undemocratic way to defeat an electorate you oppose.”

In an interview with Capitol News Illinois this week, Ives again suggested that including three ballot questions was a way to quash her group’s effort.

“They didn’t wait to see if we even had the signatures,” Ives said, later noting that she intends to revive the effort and get the question on a future ballot.

Hoffman didn’t comment directly on Ives’ characterization of the questions, and instead said that they were selected because of an interest from the public.

“These three questions were on the forefront of the news media when we passed these,” Hoffman said.

Other lawmakers attempted to put constitutional amendments up for a vote, including proposals dealing with ethics reforms, guaranteeing hunting rights, voting qualifications and abortion.

In total, 34 constitutional amendments were introduced since the start of 2023 that could have appeared on this year’s ballot. They came mostly from Republicans, although five came from Democrats and one was introduced with bipartisan sponsorship.

None were considered in a legislative committee.

Local referendums

Several counties will also weigh in on a local measure that is part of a broader secessionist movement in Illinois.

Voters in Calhoun, Clinton, Greene, Iroquois, Jersey, Madison and Perry counties will be casting votes to opine on whether downstate counties should consider separating from Cook County to form a new state.

Since 2019, at least 25 other counties out of Illinois’ 102 have posed similar questions to voters. With the addition of the seven counties considering the issue in 2024, about 10.9% of Illinois’ population outside of Cook County will have had the chance to vote on the issue since 2019.

In each of the counties that have already considered this, the results have leaned heavily in favor of separation. Between 70% and 83% of voters in those counties favor exploring a split from Cook County, according to Illinois Separation, a group that advocates for these referendums.

The proposal faces long odds of ever coming to fruition. It would require action in Springfield and in Congress and has only happened three times in American history. Kentucky broke from Virginia in 1792, Maine broke from Massachusetts in 1820 and West Virginia broke from Virginia in 1863.

Additionally, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul told Jersey County’s state’s attorney in a 2023 memo that he believed counties without home rule powers do not have the legal authority to secede from the state.

In May, at an unrelated event in Madison County, the largest county to consider the question so far, Gov. JB Pritzker said proposals like these “should not be on the ballot.”

“It shouldn’t be something that’s part of the lexicon and discussion of politicians,” he said. “We’re one state. We’re supporting each other.”

Other counties and municipalities have referendums about several issues. For example, the village of Oak Park and Peoria County are considering switching to ranked choice voting for future elections. They also include routine referendums on levying new taxes for schools, fire districts and other local governments.

To learn more about the referendums on your ballot, contact your local elections office – usually the county clerk – or visit Capitol News Illinois’ Local Election Guide.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.