Weeping Angels amend Election Code... but why?

In a rational polity, legislatures would not act on anything important without investigation (extensive committee hearings, for example) and deliberation. Important legislation would take time... to ripen, to refine, to polish... to consider consequences. Public input and opinion would be sought or, if necessary, guided and shaped by wise legislative leaders.

That's not how we do things in Illinois, of course.

Not for anything important. When our General Assembly does something important, or at least something it thinks is important, it materializes a statute out of seeming nowhere, in an eyeblink, and zips it through the process before anyone on the Outside has a chance to know it is happening.

That's how we know P.A. 103-0586 must be important. It must be really important because it sprang into existence, fully formed, out of less than nothing, in the course of 48 hours or less -- and was signed by the Governor the very next day.

In fact, P.A. 103-0586 must be really, really important because the Springfield Weeping Angels chose to rush this statute through before the end of the current legislative term.

Those of you familiar with these legislative shenanigans can skip ahead a few paragraphs, when we get to the specifics of what P.A. 103-0586 is trying to accomplish. But, for the rest of you, a brief look at the legislative history of SB2414 may prove entertaining. Or terrifying.

As introduced, SB2414 was apparently a substantive attempt to amend the Children and Family Services Act. It was filed in February 2023, and, in due course, referred to committee. It passed through committee unanimously and, by March 29, 2003, it passed its third and final reading in the State Senate 57-0. Not controversial. Also, not anything that would be on the radar of anyone tasked with monitoring changes to Illinois election law.

SB2414 arrived in the House without apparent incident. But on May 16, 2023, Assistant Majority Leader Robert "Bob" Rita introduced an "amendment" to SB2414. Here is that amendment:

You've heard of "shell bills" perhaps. This is what one looks like. This is what the Weeping Angels seem to need in order to weave their magic.

On account of this brilliant piece of legislative drafting (deleting "and" and then inserting "and" back in -- it sort of makes my heart swell with patriotic pride at the craftsmanship of of it all) the newly 'amended' bill had to go back to committee... where it passed on what looks like a party line vote. Then it was set up for a Second Reading in the House. With legislation, though, it's the third time that's the charm, and the legislative history reveals that SB2414 was set up for its third reading/final action through May 31, 2023.

And then nothing happened.

Except... on May 31, 2023 it was "re-referred" to the Rules Committee. Ready for whenever it might be needed.

Whenever came 11 months and one day later: On May 1, 2024 SB2414 got a new sponsor, Assistant Majority Leader Jay Hoffman, from downstate Belleville, and all new language (via House Floor Amendment No. 2, an amendment filed by the aformentioned Rep. Hoffman). In fact, it got the language it has now. And on May 1, it went back to committee, and back out of committee. Still on May 1, the amendment was adopted on the floor of the House and the newly amended SB2414 passed on its third and final reading, 67-4. Forty abstentions were recorded; apparently the Republican members of the House walked out, rather than vote against the bill.

SB2414 went back to the Senate at this point, where the two "amendments" to the innocuous, not-election-related proposal that it had been when it was last in the State Senate were adopted, in sequence. Senate Republicans apparently boycotted these votes (recorded as 35-3-18). All of this on May 2.

And, as already noted, the Governor signed SB2414, now P.A. 103-0586, on May 3, effective immediately.

In Springfield, don't blink!

So... what does P.A. 103-0586 purport to do?

Well, this is where it gets interesting: Some of it appears to be fairly standard election year theatrics. Some of it appears to be a helpful reform to our very congested election calendar. And the middle part of it -- the one that apparently triggered the Republican boycott -- prevents political parties from putting candidates on the ballot in the general election where no candidate of that party came forward in the primary.

The election year theatrics are found in Articles 2, 3, and 4 of the new law. These articles certify three advisory referendum questions for the statewide November ballot:

1. 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?


2. 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?


3. 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?

Nothing binding here... just a means of potentially ginning up turnout from among constituencies that the Democratic majority would like to see at the polls on Election Day. (Just a side note here for our elected leaders: Do you see how easy it would be to put a referendum on the ballot calling for fair election maps drawn by a nonpartisan commission?)

The potentially helpful part of the statute is in the amendments to §§7-11 and 7-12 of the Election Code, 10 ILCS 5/7-11 and 7-12, moving up petition filing dates by 28 days. This would allow more time for election boards to consider challenges to nominating petitions and potentially allow for their disposition prior to the start of early voting. Perhaps, in the next election cycle, we can avoid any necessity to 'halt early voting' whilst appeals proceed on petition challenges.

I believe this will move the entire election calendar up by those same 28 days. Petition signing may begin 28 days sooner, perhaps. But that is my hunch, not yet backed up with research or authoritative opinion. Actual election lawyers are looking into this carefully, I am sure. Persons interested in running for office in 2026 should be paying careful attention to this as well... and, of course, should be consulting an election lawyer sooner rather than later. (At least 28 days sooner, I would say.)

The controversial part of P.A. 103-0586 appears to be the amendments to §7-61 and §8-17 of the Election Code (10 ILCS 5/7-61 and 10 ILCS 5/8-17) and related statutes. Clearly, judging by the partisan outrage, the Legislature did this for somebody specific... or to someone specific. Maybe both. Those of us on the Outside are unlikely to find out the particulars.

Before P.A. 103-0586, where no candidate ran in the primary, or was nominated as a write-in, the leaders of that party could thereafter appoint someone to 'fill in the blank' on the ballot. If you clicked on the news link a few paragraphs above, you may have noticed that this practice was referred to as 'slating.' Apparently.

Obviously, 'slating' Downstate and slating in County Cook are different things.

There were hoops that had to be jumped through by the person so appointed, and apparently these have grown more complicated over time. Entropy increases is a law of physics. When it comes to legislation, it is complexity that increases.

Probably most FWIW readers have never even heard of this practice. Since I've been on this beat, this was done exactly once in a Cook County judicial race, in 2014, in the 4th Subcircuit. I wrote about it then.

But the new act purports to preclude political parties from nominating candidates for election without going through a primary.

The operative language appears to be in §8-17 of the Election Code which, on its face, seems to be about candidates who die on or before the primary. It previously provided, and continues to provide, a procedure for parties to replace a candidate who dies before or after the primary, or declines his or her nomination, or withdraws from the general election.

But §8-17 used to allow this procedure to be used "should the nomination for any other reason become vacant." That language is now stricken by P.A. 103-0586. Further, the second sentence in that second paragraph now reads, "However, if there was no candidate for the nomination of the party in the primary, no candidate of that party for that office may be listed on the ballot at the general election."

So... assuming the law holds up against an expected legal challenge (on the grounds that the rules of the election are being changed in the middle of the election cycle, and not just for the future)... all currently unopposed candidates will remain unopposed (pending, if you really want to be technical, the vanishly small possibility that some independent candidate might somehow qualify for the November ballot).

Again, however, the provisions now amended by P.A. 103-0586 have only been used once in Cook County judicial races in many years. There was a rumor that the Republicans were going to field a candidate in, oddly enough, the 4th Subcircuit, but, from what I heard, the prospective candidate in question decided against running this time... even before the Weeping Angels struck. It seems highly unlikely that all this legislative effort was made to prevent a contest in the 4th Subcircuit.

But you can bet your mortgage this was done for a reason. Probably to help a specific person, presumably an incumbent, or to prevent a specific person from slipping onto the November ballot. But who?