Chicago Bar Ass'n v. State Bd. of Elections

• Decision Date: 22 August 1990
• Docket Number: No. 70436,70436
• Citation: 561 N.E.2d 50,148 Ill.Dec. 744,137 Ill.2d 394
• Parties: , 148 Ill.Dec. 744 The CHICAGO BAR ASSOCIATION et al., Appellants, v. The STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS et al. (Tax Accountability Amendment Committee et al., Appellees).
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 50

561 N.E.2d 50

137 Ill.2d 394, 148 Ill.Dec. 744

The CHICAGO BAR ASSOCIATION et al., Appellants, v. The STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS et al. (Tax Accountability Amendment Committee et al., Appellees).

No. 70436.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Aug. 22, 1990.

Leonard M. Ring and Leslie J. Rosen, of Leonard M. Ring & Associates, P.C., and Rene A. Torrado, Jr., of Vedder, Price, Kaufman & Kammholz, Chicago, for appellants.

Robert J. Ruiz, Sol. Gen., and Michael J. Hayes, James R. Carroll and Roger P. Flahaven, Asst. Attys. Gen., Chicago, for the State Bd. of Elections et al. and for amicus curiae Neil F. Hartigan, Atty. Gen.

Rivkin, Radler, Bayh, Hart & Kremer, Chicago (Steven R. Merican and Michelle J. Gilbert, of counsel), for appellee Tax Accountability Amendment Committee.

Sherman Carmell, of Carmell, Charone, Widmer, Mathews & Moss, Chicago, for amicus curiae Chicago Federation of Labor & Industrial Union Council.

Michael L. Shakman, R. Dickey Hamilton and Barry A. Miller, of Miller, Shakman, Hamilton & Kurtzon, Chicago, for amici curiae Citizens for Fair Tax Policy et al.

Mitchell Roth, Springfield, for amicus curiae Illinois Educ. Ass'n-NEA.

Maurice E. Bone and Dennis A. Rendleman, Springfield, for amicus curiae Illinois State Bar Ass'n.

Joel A. D'Alba, Lester Asher and Stephen Feinberg, of Asher, Gittler, Greenfield, Cohen & D'Alba, Ltd., Chicago, for amicus curiae Illinois State Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organization.

W. Robert Blair and Steven R. Blair, of Blair & Blair, Chicago, for amicus curiae George H. Ryan.

Joseph A. Morris and Peter G. Gallanis, Chicago (Morris, Rathnau & De La Rosa, of counsel), for amicus curiae Lincoln Legal Found.

Richard S. Williamson and Steven K. Skinner, Chicago, for amicus curiae Jim Edgar.

Justice RYAN delivered the opinion of the court:

This case involves a proposed amendment to article IV of the Illinois Constitution by use of the initiative procedure set forth in section 3 of article XIV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970. A committee collected nearly 500,000 signatures in support of a petition to place the proposed initiative amendment on the ballot for the November 6, 1990, general election. This petition and the signatures were filed with the Secretary of State. The proposed amendment is commonly called the Tax Accountability Amendment (Amendment) and the committee supporting the Amendment is referred to as the Tax Accountability Amendment Committee (TAAC).

Plaintiffs, the Chicago Bar Association (CBA), its president, Gordon B. Nash, Jr., and vice-president (president-elect), Laurel G. Bellows, filed a complaint in the circuit court of Cook County on May 23, 1990, seeking to prevent defendants from spending public money to place the proposed Amendment on the November 6, 1990, ballot. The complaint named as defendants the State Board of Elections, its chairman, vice-chairman and members, the State Comptroller, the State Treasurer, the county clerk of Cook County, and the Chicago board of elections, its chairman and commissioners. Plaintiffs allege that the proposed Amendment does not fulfill the requirements for amendment to article IV of the constitution by popular initiative. (Ill. Const.1970, art. XIV, § 3.) The suit is predicated on the Disbursement of Public Moneys statute (Ill.Rev.Stat.1987, ch. 110, par. 11-301 et seq.).

Plaintiffs also filed a petition with this court on May 24, 1990, asking the court to take the matter as an original action. We declined to do so, finding no original jurisdiction, but instructed the trial court to rule on the cause before it by July 2, 1990, so that an appeal could be expedited to accommodate the time limitations associated with the November 6, 1990, general election.

The circuit court permitted the TAAC to intervene as party defendant. Various parties were granted leave to file amicus curiae briefs. The TAAC filed an answer to the complaint, a summary judgment motion and a motion not relevant to this appeal. Plaintiffs opposed these motions, filed a brief supporting their complaint, and filed their own summary judgment motion.

The parties presented their argument in the circuit court of Cook County on June 27, 1990. Within the time ordered by this court, the trial court entered a written order holding that the proposed Amendment meets the requirements of article XIV, section 3, of the Illinois Constitution. The court, therefore, granted summary judgment for defendant TAAC and against plaintiffs. Plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal and moved for a direct appeal to this court, which we granted (107 Ill.2d R. 302(b)).

The proposed Amendment provides, in pertinent part, as follows:

"Section 8.1 Passage of Revenue Bills

(a) A bill that would result in the increase of revenue to the State may become law only by a vote of three-fifths of the members in each house of the General Assembly.

(b) Each house of the General Assembly shall have a revenue committee. It shall be the sole and the exclusive responsibility of the revenue committees to consider all bills which would result in an increase or decrease of revenue to the State. A bill pending in a revenue committee must be approved by a majority of members of that committee before it is sent to the full house for consideration or vote.

(c) There shall be 25 members on the revenue committee in the House of Representatives. The members of the House Revenue Committee shall be appointed by the Speaker of the House and the House Minority Leader. The membership of the committee shall be proportionally as close arithmetically as possible to the percentage of members in the House of Representatives who vote for the Speaker and who vote for the Minority Leader.

There shall be 13 members on the revenue committee in the Senate. The members of the Senate Revenue Committee shall be appointed by the President of the Senate and the Senate Minority Leader. The membership of the committee shall be proportionally as close arithmetically as possible to the percentage of members in the Senate who vote for the Senate President and who vote for the Senate Minority Leader.

Revenue committee members may be removed from the committee only by a majority, recorded, roll call vote of all members of the committee's respective chamber. No member of the General Assembly may serve more than four consecutive years on a revenue committee.

(d) The revenue committees may not vote upon a bill until a public hearing on the bill has been held. Reasonable notice of the hearing, which in no event may be less than two weeks, shall be given to the public."

Prior to 1970, the constitutions of this State did not provide for amending the constitution through the direct initiative process. The Constitution of 1970 provides for amending the constitution in three ways: (1) by a constitutional convention (Ill. Const.1970, art. XIV, § 1), (2) by a resolution approved by a three-fifths vote of both houses of the legislature, and by approval by the electorate by a vote of three-fifths of those voting on the question, or a majority of all those voting at the election (Ill. Const.1970, art. XIV, § 2), or (3) amending article IV of the constitution by use of the initiative procedure (Ill. Const.1970, art. XIV, § 3). The TAAC seeks to amend the constitution through the initiative process outlined in section 3 of article XIV of the Illinois Constitution, thus bypassing action by the legislature, which would be required if the amendment procedures set out in section 2 of article XIV were used. Section 3 of article XIV, however, is not as broad an amendment authority as that contained in sections 1 and 2 of article XIV. Section 3 provides only for an amendment to the legislative article of the constitution, and under that section, not every aspect of the legislative article is subject to amendment through the initiative process. The express limitations of section 3 are: "Amendments shall be limited to structural and procedural subjects contained in Article IV." (Ill. Const.1970, art. XIV, § 3.) The question posed, therefore, is whether the proposed Amendment falls within the limitations of section 3 of article XIV.

Only three cases have thus far addressed the requirements of section 3 of article XIV. In Coalition for Political Honesty v. State Board of Elections (1976), 65 Ill.2d 453, 3 Ill.Dec. 728, 359 N.E.2d 138 (Coalition I ), the court found that a proposed Amendment that would place additional restrictions on legislators' salaries and that would require legislators to disclose financial interests and refrain from voting when a conflict might exist would not affect both structural and procedural changes in article IV, as the court found article XIV, section 3, to require. The Coalition I court relied extensively on the debates in concluding that the initiative process is limited to changes that are both structural and procedural. The court did not, however, address what it would consider to be the limits of subjects of article IV, which is more directly at issue in the present case.

In Lousin v. State Board of Elections (1982), 108 Ill.App.3d 496, 63 Ill.Dec. 878, 438 N.E.2d 1241, the court held that a proposed Amendment that would create an initiative process for enacting legislation did not meet the requirements set forth in section 3 of article XIV. The court, relying on Coalition I and noting Justice Schaefer's dissent therein, held that "the initiative process [cannot] be used to alter or change the power of the legislature." (108 Ill.App.3d at 503, 63 Ill.Dec. 878, 438 N.E.2d 1241.) The court simply found, from looking at the constitutional debates and the Coalition I court's discussion of them, that the popular initiative process was not designed to go that far. In Coalition for Political Honesty v. State Board of Elections (1980), 83 Ill.2d 236, 47 Ill.Dec. 363, 415 N.E.2d 368 (Coalition II ), the court approved for placement on the ballot a proposed Amendment that...