Did DuPage County Officials dupe the General Assembly into violating the Illinois Constitution?

DuPage Co.  (ECWd) –

I wish I could take credit for this one as it turns out I had read the specific Illinois Constitution provision years ago on another matter and forgot about it.  Thanks to an everyday citizen who is paying attention for bringing it to my attention as I believe they were spot on in their assessment of what happened in Springfield during the last day of the 99th General Assembly.

We ran this story back in December and pointed out why the Election Commission was wrong in their actions and that their plans of fixing it were not within any statutory authority.  We were told by many that we are not attorneys and don’t know what we are talking about. We stood by that article and now it is clear our position has been validated.

The General Assembly passed SB 3319, which by all indications, is special legislation brought on by the mistakes made by the DuPage Election Commission.  In order to grasp the magnitude of this new law, you must first read the story linked above.

We believe those behind that bill have been duped, and in the process may have duped the entire General Assembly and possibly the Governor if he signs this.

The bill changes the timeline required for publishing a proper notice and applies that timeline to action that has already been taken and found improper. So by all indications, they passed special legislation and made it retroactive to an election already held.

Now comes the potentially multi-million dollar question.  Was the passage of that legislation in violation of our Illinois Constitution, specifically Article VI Section 13 which states:

SECTION 13. SPECIAL LEGISLATION

“The General Assembly shall pass no special or local law when a general law is or can be made applicable.  Whether a general law is or can be made applicable shall be a matter for judicial determination.”

On the last day, after gutting shell bill SB3319, which was submitted as a Higher Education Student Assistance bill, the Legislature replaced the bill with a 3rd amendment (total replacement from the original bill) that provides a special carve-out effective to action that took place in the November 2016 election.

In short, it appears they passed a special law and made it a one-time retroactive law.  We believe this action violates the Illinois Constitution and must not be signed by the Governor.

We contend this is a special law.  Such a law shall not be passed, as outlined in our State Constitution, when a “general law is or can be made applicable”.  The law that is applicable is the very one the DuPage Election Commission failed to follow. They got caught, couldn’t fix it like they claimed they could (told you so LOL), and then managed to convince the legislature to pass a law that fixes their mistake.

This is yet another example of how this state no longer operates under the rule of law.  When they get caught violating the law that they all hold over our head, they just contact the Cronin Cronies and change the law to make their wrong right.

I pray the Governor does not sign this bill because if he does I suspect the lawsuits that will surely follow will end up costing the taxpayers more money.

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