Legal fight brewing over state constitutional convention question
SPRINGFIELD - Just weeks before voters go to the polls, there's a fight emerging over the question they'll face about rewriting the state's constitution.
The conflict involves how the question is explained on ballots across the state. The state constitution requires that every 20 years voters be asked if they want to convene a constitutional convention to consider changing the document that governs Illinois.
This happens to be one of those years. Twenty years ago, voters overwhelmingly rejected the idea with 75 percent voting "no."
State officials chose to include that factoid in the ballot question and now the Chicago Bar Association questions its legality while pro-rewrite groups are crying foul, claiming the wording stacks the deck against them.
A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Wednesday in Cook County court.
The lawsuit targets Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, whose office was recently required to mail out constitutional convention ballot guides to households at a cost of more than $1 million.
White's spokesman, however, said there's no authority for White to change the ballot wording, which was approved by state lawmakers and sent to him. White then sent it on to the Illinois State Board of Elections, which is also named in the lawsuit.
"It is not our role to be the editor of the language submitted by the General Assembly, which is their statutory obligation," said White spokesman Henry Haupt.
The Chicago Bar Association claims that the explanation on the ballot and several other aspects are unconstitutional and, if not fixed, could result in the entire process having to be done again.
The legal association has not taken a position on the constitutional convention itself.
But other state officials - most notably Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn - already asked White to change the wording, fearing that people will read it and assume based on the 1988 rejection that it's a bad idea.
White declined that request recently, again saying he had no authority to do so.