On August 23, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a decision upholding a lower court ruling blocking a change to the state’s election law that would have disqualified fourteen candidates from running in the 2024 general election.

On May 3, Governor Pritzker signed a new “anti-slating” law that changed the rules for ballot access in the middle of an election cycle. PA 103-0586 was introduced to the General Assembly under a controversial “gut and replace” maneuver and signed into law less than two days after it was first introduced. The new law ended the practice of “slating,” in which political parties could nominate (or “field”) a candidate for the General Assembly to appear on the general election ballot if no one ran in the primary.

When PA 103-0586 was hastily enacted, Illinois officials claimed it was an “ethics” reform designed to hold government officials accountable to voters and prevent party insiders from supporting their preferred candidates without the input of ordinary Illinoisans. But Illinois Democrats enacted the law for purely partisan reasons, effective immediately—in the middle of an election cycle in which Republican candidates had already been nominated and candidates seeking to get on the ballot had begun collecting voter signatures. Had PA 103-0586 not been challenged in court, the law would have blocked more than a dozen candidates from the November ballot, leaving Illinois voters with only one candidate to choose in their general election.

On May 10, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit against the Illinois State Board of Elections on behalf of several potential candidates for General Assembly seats in the November 2024 election. The lawsuit argued that the board’s mid-election cycle rule change violated candidates’ constitutional right to access the ballot.

On May 22, the Sangamon County Circuit Court in Springfield sided with the Liberty Justice Center and issued a preliminary injunction to prevent the state from enforcing PA 103-0586 against the plaintiffs while the trial was ongoing. That injunction became final on June 5, when the court ruled that enforcing the provision of PA 103-0586 barring “list formation” for General Assembly races in the 2024 election against the plaintiffs is unconstitutional.

Shortly after the court announced that ruling, Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch, who had intervened to defend the law, asked the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn it. Welch was not one of the original plaintiffs, but he requested that the court intervene in the case. The Illinois State Board of Elections and the Attorney General did not join the petition.

In its decision today, the Illinois Supreme Court announced that two of the court’s seven justices had recused themselves from hearing the case, leaving the remaining justices unable to reach the four-judge majority required by the state constitution to rule.

As a result, the lower court’s preliminary injunction against the anti-slating provision remains in place.

“We applaud the court’s decision to protect candidates’ rights and block the partisan attempt by Illinois lawmakers to exclude their political opponents from the ballot,” said Jeffrey Schwab, senior attorney at the Liberty Justice Center.

The legal documents of the Liberty Justice Center in Collazo v. Illinois State Board of Elections are available here. The Illinois Supreme Court decision is available here.