Government generally requires following the letter of the law. But politics is about perception – and occasionally exploiting the space between the lines.
In May, Democrats abused the legislative process to ram through Senate Bill 2412. Relevant for today’s discussion is that bill’s provision banning political parties from appointing candidates to a general election ballot after sitting out a primary.
“I want to emphasize we’re not taking this away from Republicans; we’re taking this away from everybody,” state Sen. President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, said at the time. “We Democrats won’t be able to slate candidates for the Senate in any districts where your members are running unopposed. It’s a problem with the practice.”
Gov. JB Pritzker’s quote was less polished:
“It really does make sure that we don’t have backroom deals to put people on the ballot and run as a result of, you know, some small group of people in a smoke-filled room making the choice. To me, more transparency is better.”
More transparency is better. But those same Democrats in vast numbers quickly hopped on the endorsement train for their party’s revamped presidential ticket well after the primary process conclusively advanced a candidate. Is that hypocritical?
The question is fair but the specifics of this legislation give politicians enough wiggle room to stake out a position supporting both their own in-house rule change and the sudden reversal on a national campaign.
The new Illinois law specifically addresses primary campaigns where one party didn’t run a candidate. And in Illinois, Democrats did have a candidate on the presidential primary ballot in March. Four, actually, drawing more than 808,000 combined votes. None was the person currently in line to receive the party’s official nomination at next month’s convention in Chicago, but clearly the party participated in the primary process.
This isn’t local party officials seeing an unopposed statehouse race and agreeing on their own who can mount the strongest challenge. An announced candidate leaving the race – even after winning a primary – isn’t unheard of in Illinois. One example is Senate President Emil Jones winning his 2008 primary only to retire in August and guide the appointment of his son to both his Senate seat and spot on the November ballot. That process remains legal.
The legal challenges to the reform focus less on the merits and more on procedure: did Democrats violate the three readings rule and, more importantly, should they be allowed to change the rules in the middle of the campaign process instead of just setting new policy for 2026?
More transparency is indeed better. But while partisan primaries are an aspect of representative government, this entire situation highlights the outsized influence our two-party system yields to connected insiders.
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. Follow him on X @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/shawmedia/55aeee77-0609-4323-931a-c6686fff01e6.png)