Eye On Illinois: Self-interested lawmakers unlikely to widen citizen initiative pathway

In the real world, experienced people can identify a problem, propose a solution then set about attempting to make dreams reality.

In government, however, there are a few additional steps.

Former Gov. Pat Quinn was at the Statehouse Tuesday putting his political weight behind House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 19, an effort from state Rep. Ryan Spain, R-Peoria, to increase the ways in which citizens can seek to change the state constitution.

As Peter Hancock explained for Capitol News Illinois, the current rules only allow public ballot initiative measures to amend Article IV, which covers only the General Assembly. This limit has scuttled reform efforts, such as in 2016 when a 4-3 Illinois Supreme Court ruling removed a referendum from the Independent Maps coalition that would’ve let voters change the redistricting process.

Although the referendum language called for amending Article IV, Section 3, the top court affirmed a Cook County judge’s ruling the initiative exceeded the allowable scope by seeking to impose additional duties on the state’s auditor general.

“In reaching this conclusion, we emphasize that it is based solely on the constitutional infirmity of the particular ballot initiative before this court,” Justice Thomas Kilbride wrote for the majority. “Our decision is not intended to reflect in any way on the viability of other possible redistricting reform initiatives.

In her dissent, then-Chief Justice Rita Garman noted section 3′s intent to provide Illinoisans “the power to act in situations where it is against the legislature’s self interest to do so.” Justice Robert Thomas hammered harder, calling the majority opinion “nothing less than the nullification of a critical component of the Illinois Constitution of 1970. … The majority has irrevocably severed a vital lifeline created by the drafters for the express purpose of enabling later generations of Illinoisans to use their sovereign authority as a check against self-interest by the legislature.

Spain’s proposal would also let citizens proposed amendments to Article XIII, Section 2, which forces state office candidates to file economic interest statements. That’s a different apple from redistricting, but the underlying approach is identical: lawmakers alone won’t make this change directly.

Quinn and Spain are correct in terms of the sequence of events that might lead to proposals safe from judicial scrutiny, but it’s hard to see the roadmap for lawmakers enacting an indirect change that could ultimately deliver the same conclusion.

These conversations don’t even address whether redistricting or proposed ethics reforms can actually improve conditions in Springfield (many ethics ideas target symptoms over root causes). But the lawyers and lawmakers protecting the status quo rarely have to consider that big picture. Rather they seek the devils in the finer procedural details – or sometimes just by looking in the mirror.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media. Follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.