By CAPITOL NEWS ILLINOIS

SPRINGFIELD – Two former state senators who sponsored and voted for bills to reduce lawmakers’ pay and forgo annual cost-of-living adjustments are now asking the Illinois Supreme Court to declare those measures unconstitutional and award them their back pay.

Former Sens. Michael Noland, D-Elgin, and James Clayborne, D-Belleville, have been successful so far in their legal efforts, prevailing in 2019 in Cook County Circuit Court before Judge Franklin Valderrama. But Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, the defendant in the case, filed a direct appeal to the state’s highest court arguing that Valderrama got the decision wrong.

Clayborne served in the General Assembly for 24 years, from 1995 to 2019. Noland served for 10 years, from 2007 to 2017.

In 2009, when Illinois and most other states were dealing with budget crises brought on by the Great Recession, lawmakers passed a pair of measures that eliminated their automatic cost-of-living adjustments and required them to take one furlough day each month, which had the effect of reducing their base salary.

Noland was a sponsor of the bill freezing cost of living adjustments and a chief cosponsor of the furlough bill.

In each subsequent year through 2019, lawmakers passed substantially similar measures. Both men supported the measures and routinely touted their support for those measures to their constituents.

But when Noland left office in 2017, he filed a lawsuit arguing that the measures were unconstitutional under the legislative pay clause of the Illinois Constitution, which says lawmakers’ salaries may not be changed during the term to which they’ve been elected. Clayborne joined the suit after he announced that he would not seek reelection but before his last term officially ended.

Clayborne is seeking $104,412.93 in lost pay. Noland is seeking $71,507.43.

At the circuit court level, Judge Valderrama declared the legislative actions unconstitutional on their face and thus void from the very beginning, meaning it is as if they were never enacted in the first place. He then issued an order directing Mendoza to pay the claims.

Mendoza, through Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office, appealed on three grounds. While she did not challenge the finding that the legislative acts were unconstitutional, she argued that the former senators had effectively waived their right to any relief by voting in favor of the pay reduction bills.

She also argued that the former lawmakers waited an unreasonable length of time before filing their claims – a concept in law known as “laches” – and that their claims should be barred by the statute of limitations, which is generally five years.

The court took the case under advisement and is expected to issue a ruling later this year.

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HISTORIC SUPREME COURT APPOINTEE: The Illinois Supreme Court announced Tuesday, May 10, that 4th District Appellate Justice Lisa Holder White has been appointed to succeed Justice Rita Garman, making her the first Black woman to serve on the state’s high court.

“Being appointed to the Illinois Supreme Court is the honor of a lifetime. I am humbled by the confidence Justice Rita B. Garman and the entire Court have placed in me,” Holder White said in a news release. “My service to the judiciary for the past 21 years has helped prepare me for this historic moment. I look forward to the privilege of resolving matters my fellow citizens bring
before the Court.”

Garman, 78, a Republican, announced Monday that she would retire from the bench effective July 7 after 21 years on the court and 48 years as a judge in Illinois. She was the first woman to be named judge in a downstate circuit and the first woman to serve on the 4th District Court of Appeals.

Because Garman’s official retirement will come after the primary on June 28, the court had the constitutional authority to appoint her successor.

Holder White, 54, also a Republican, will be sworn in on July 8, which will roughly coincide with the swearing in of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. Holder White’s term will expire Dec. 2, 2024, after a full-time replacement is chosen in the November 2024 elections.

A native of Decatur, Holder White earned a bachelor’s degree from Lewis University in Romeoville in 1990 and a law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law in Urbana-Champaign in 1993.

She began her career as an assistant state’s attorney in Macon County before going into private practice. She was named an associate judge in the 6th Judicial Circuit in 2001, making her the first Black judge in that circuit, and was appointed to be a circuit judge in 2008 to fill a retirement vacancy.

She was appointed to the 4th District Court of Appeals in 2013 to succeed the late Justice John T. McCullough, who died the previous October, making her the first Black judge in the appellate district. She was elected to that seat in 2014.

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ABORTION ACCESS: Gov. JB Pritzker called on Congress Wednesday, May 11, to “be like Illinois” and codify abortion access into federal law.

Pritzker made those comments at a Fairview Heights abortion clinic, touting steps Illinois has taken to protect abortion services should a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision be finalized as precedent.

The Women’s Health Protection Act that was before Congress Wednesday would have protected an individual’s ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy and prevent states from acting to remove or alter abortion protections in the future. But the legislation did not pass the Senate, falling in a procedural vote 49-51 after Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin joined Republicans and voted no.

Advocates at a news conference at the Fairview Heights Regional Logistics Center warned that overturning Roe would create further inequities in health care among low-income and minority women that already have difficulties receiving quality care.

Opened in January, the RLC is operated by Planned Parenthood and the Granite City-based Hope Clinic for Women, making abortion care more accessible.

Rep. LaToya Greenwood, D-East St. Louis, said the past two years have amplified the gender, racial and economic inequities that have long blocked access to quality health care for low-income and minority people. Greenwood said the potential decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will be a “matter of life and death” for Black and brown women.

Yamelsie Rodriguez, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said that Illinois is on a “new frontier of abortion access” and she is thankful lawmakers have taken the steps to codify women’s reproductive rights into law.

In 2019, Pritzker signed the Reproductive Health Act enshrining in state law the fundamental right to an abortion. Illinois is one of 16 states to codify the right to an abortion and the only Midwestern state to do so.

Pritzker said that since 2015, the number of out-of-state patients seeking an abortion has tripled and he expects it to soar if Roe is overturned.

Rodriguez highlighted that since the opening of the RLC, case managers have helped nearly 1,000 patients from seven states travel to Illinois for an abortion. She said case-managers help out-of-state patients with traveling, lodging and other financial assistance.

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PUBLIC SAFETY BILLS: Gov. JB Pritzker signed House Bill 4736 into law Tuesday, May 10, in Peoria, one of the four communities that will be part of a co-responder pilot program that aims to send social workers and mental health professionals on law enforcement calls. The others are Waukegan, Springfield and East St. Louis.

The program would send social workers along with law enforcement on certain calls with a primary focus on victim assistance, as well as diversion from the criminal justice system.

Responsibilities would include connecting victims with social services, providing guidance for receiving orders of protection and filing police reports, working with police investigators within confidentiality laws, and providing guidance to families of juveniles who have been arrested.

The budget provides $10 million for the pilot programs this year. It would need a reallocation of funding each year and would expire in 2029.

While Republicans have criticized Democrats for leniency in sentencing and attacked the majority party as soft on crime, Pritzker pointed to investments in two Illinois State Police crime labs and other technologies to aid investigations, such as expressway cameras.

“You’ve got to give police the tools that they need to go arrest the right people, and make sure that we can put them in prison,” he said.

HB 4736 also renames an existing program as the Violent Crime Witness Protection Act, expanding it to fund emergency relocation expenses, lost wage assistance, security deposits for rent and utilities and more. The budget included $30 million to implement the program.

HB 4736 also created a tip hotline grant program for anonymous tip hotlines that provide cash rewards for tips that lead to an arrest. The budget included $1 million for that purpose.

The measure would also require homicide investigators to be trained in victim-centered, trauma-informed investigation. It also creates a crime reduction task force to study violence prevention measures and report back to the governor and General Assembly.

Pritzker also signed House Bill 3863, which would direct grants to local governments, public higher education institutions and qualified nonprofits for the purpose of hiring and retaining officers. Lawmakers dedicated $10 million to for the grants.

He also signed House Bill 2895 which would allow the Department of Human Services to directly pay funeral expenses of children murdered due to gun violence, rather than having their families wait for reimbursement.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government that is distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.