Republicans across the state are waiting on the Illinois Supreme Court to decide the fate of a new state law that they say marked a blatant move by Springfield's Democratic supermajority to block GOP candidates from the ballot and deny anyone who wants to vote for someone other than Democrats a real choice in dozens of races.
Troy City Administrator and former Edwardsville Police Chief Jay Keeven is among those awaiting the decision, as it is likely to also decide the fate of his candidacy as the Republican nominee against Democrat incumbent State Rep. Katie Stuart in the 112th House District in Madison and St. Clair counties.
"I am confident I will be on the ballot in November," Keeven said in a statement emailed to The Madison-St. Clair Record. "The more Katie Stuart and the Democrats try to deny voters a choice for state representative, the more momentum my campaign gains."
However, to make it to November, Keeven's campaign must first survive an objection to his candidacy and a hearing in coming weeks before the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Initially known as Senate Bill 2412, the law amended state election rules to block political parties from slating candidates to run for office after the primary election, unless they had first run in their party's primary election.
Under the previous rules, parties who had no official nominees for a particular elected office after the spring primary vote had 75 days after the primary election to "slate" candidates to run as the official party nominee in such races. This year, that deadline was to be June 3.
However, six weeks after the March 19 primary, and with just about four weeks until the June 3 deadline, Democrats rushed SB2412 through both houses of the Illinois General Assembly in less than 48 hours. Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker then quickly signed the legislation, upending the candidate nomination process that was already underway.
While the changes would apply to all political parties, it is particularly harmful to Republicans during the 2024 election, as the GOP intended to rely on that process to ensure it had candidates on the ballot to run against Democratic incumbents in the November general election.
Pritzker described the law as an "ethics reform" measure, and Democrats said the law was needed to ensure only party primary voters can choose party nominees for seats in the Illinois state House and Senate.
Republicans, however, said the law amounted to brazen election interference by a partisan supermajority, trampling Republicans' rights under the guise of promoting democracy.
With the changes, Democrats could all but ensure at least 53 of their incumbents in the State House and State Senate will face no competition this fall.
The law was quickly challenged in court by a group of Republican state legislative candidates seeking to use the apparently defunct slating process to place their names on the ballot this fall to challenge Democratic incumbents in the Chicago area.
One of those seeming incumbents, who would be left to run unopposed if the law is upheld, includes Nicolle Grasse, a Democrat recently appointed by Democratic Party leaders to a seat in the state House in a district in Chicago's northwest suburbs, which was left vacant when the Democrat who formerly held the seat, Mark L. Walker, was chosen by Democratic Party officials to take an open seat in the state Senate, which had opened when Gov. Pritzker appointed Ann Gillespie, the Democrat who formerly held that seat to lead the state's Department of Insurance.
Voters in neither district selected either Grasse or Walker for the seats they now hold in any election.
However, whether Grasse will face an opponent in the election this fall will depend on the ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court which is expected in coming days, perhaps even this week.
Illinois Speaker of the House Emanuel "Chris" Welch appealed the matter to the state high court after a judge in Springfield declared the law improperly changed election rules in the middle of an election cycle.
The ruling specifically applied to only the 14 Republican candidates from northern Illinois who joined their names to the lawsuit.
However, the expected ruling on the appeal from the Illinois Supreme Court likely would also decide the fate of many other candidates statewide, including Keeven in the 112th District.
Following the passage of the anti-slating legislation, Illinois Republican leaders have stated they believed the law was particularly designed to block Keeven from mounting an expected strong challenge to incumbent State Rep. Stuart in the 112th District.
Stuart has only represented the district since 2017. In the meantime, however, Madison County particularly has consistently trended increasingly Republican, potentially putting the 112th District in play, despite a Democratic gerrymander four years ago.
Keeven did not appear on the ballot in the primary election. Rather, he intended to use the slating process, and its reduced petition signature requirements, to place his name on the ballot.
Keeven filed his candidate petitions with the State Board of Elections on May 2, one day before Pritzker signed the anti-slating legislation into law.
Keeven has asserted this should mean his candidacy is exempt from the new law. And Judge Noll in her ruling alluded to Keeven's candidacy to back her finding that the change in election law, approved in the midst of the candidate selection process, would create an unconstitutional uneven playing field in which candidates who filed their petitions before May 3, like Keeven, could appear on the ballot, while those that did not were out of luck.
Despite Noll's ruling, Democrats challenged Keeven's candidacy, asserting the new law should still apply. The objection asserts the law still blocks Keeven from challenging Stuart and should allow Stuart to run unopposed.
Keeven declined to answer questions from The Madison-St. Clair Record about the objection directly, or whether he will seek a court order to force election officials to place his name on the ballot.
ISBE spokesperson Dietrich said a hearing date for the objection has not yet been scheduled because the ISBE is waiting on the state Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the anti-slating law.
But the full ISBE is expected to take action on the objection on Aug. 23, Dietrich said.