Illinois Supreme Court asked to hear constitutional challenge case
The Illinois Supreme Court has been asked to hear a lawsuit challenging where citizens can file constitutional challenges to state laws.
Plaintiffs represented by the Liberty Justice Center are asking the Illinois Supreme Court to hear a case challenging limits to where Illinoisans may challenge state law on the grounds they violate the Illinois Constitution.
House Bill 3062 stops challenges from being made in local circuit courts, where the judges are elected by those state residents, and limits them to Springfield and Cook county courts, where residents of 100 Illinois counties have no say in electing those judges. Intended to stop venue shopping by plaintiffs, what the law does is allows the state to venue shop by limiting lawsuits to two counties likely to be more favorable to the state.
The Liberty Justice Center first filed suit in August 2023 challenging HB 3062 on behalf of three St. Clair County residents – Brad Weisenstein, Dawn Elliot and Kenny Cook – in their local circuit court. That court dismissed the case, ruling the plaintiffs lacked standing and could not succeed on the merits of their claims.
The Liberty Justice Center appealed to the Fifth District Appellate Court. On Nov. 10, 2025, justices affirmed the lower court’s decision that plaintiffs lacked standing and had not proved harm.
The Liberty Justice Center has now filed a petition for leave to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court. The petition was filed Dec. 19.
The law was spurred by litigation that often proved a headache for policymakers. Lawsuits based on COVID-19 restrictions, the assault weapons ban and the abolition of cash bail statewide worked their way through the court system, producing temporary injunctions and restraining orders that threw roadblocks in the path of controversial policies. Supporters of the bill accused litigants of venue shopping for sympathetic judges, but opponents claimed the state was trying to do the same thing through the new law.
HB 3062 was seen as a way to get around the inconvenient judicial process. Equal protection of the law requires the state to govern impartially and prohibits it from drawing distinctions between individuals based solely on differences that are irrelevant to a legitimate governmental objective. HB 3062 places additional burdens on residents outside of Cook and Sangamon counties when state laws, rules or orders violate their constitutional rights.
Residents in those other counties must travel farther to bring constitutional claims and may have to hire attorneys in Sangamon or Cook counties, even if they may prefer to work with an attorney in their own community. The law also forces these residents to present their constitutional claims to judges whom they did not have the opportunity to vote for or against.
“Illinois is cherry-picking the judicial process by deciding which judges can and cannot hear cases challenging the state’s laws as unconstitutional,” said Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center. “Illinoisans must be treated equally, allowing every person to bring constitutional challenges against the state in their local courts, rather than favoring residents in some counties over others.”
Article VI, Section 9 of the Illinois Constitution gives circuit courts “original jurisdiction over all justiciable matters,” save for a few specific cases in which the Illinois Supreme Court retains original and exclusive jurisdiction. Plaintiffs argue HB 3062 limits the subject matter jurisdiction of all circuit courts outside Cook and Sangamon counties in violation of this section.