Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS - Illinois business leaders say they are continuing their efforts to persuade Gov. JB Pritzker to veto a potential new law, rammed through Springfield as a boon to the state's trial lawyers, that business leaders warn will significantly expand those lawyers' abilities to use Illinois state courts to extract big paydays from businesses and will harm the state's economy and its business reputation, even as the governor touts Illinois’ success to bolster his fledgling presidential aspirations.
Under the Illinois state constitution, Pritzker has approximately until the end of August to decide whether to sign or veto the controversial and constitutionally questionable legislation, designated as SB328.
Pritzker's press office did not reply to questions from The Record. However, The Record has learned from sources who refused to speak on the record that it appears likely Pritzker will sign SB328, perhaps within days.
Passed by Illinois' Democratic supermajority in the closing hours of the spring legislative session at the end of May, SB328 has drawn loud protests and warnings in unison from business groups and legal reform advocates that the law would deepen Illinois' standing as one of America's worst lawsuit "hellholes."
Specifically, SB328 would rewrite Illinois' so-called venue rules for its state courts, which govern who can be sued, where, and for what causes.
would create a new "consent-by-registration" system in Illinois, under which companies from throughout the U.S. and the world could be dragged into courts in Illinois for certain kinds of claims, whether or not the company has any real presence in Illinois or if the alleged injury occurred in Illinois or can be traced back to conduct in the state.
Many billions of dollars could be at stake, riding on Pritzker's pen.
Should Illinois adopt the new venue law, it would line Illinois' court system up with that of Pennsylvania, one of the country's starkest legal system outliers.
Under Pennsylvania's system, trial lawyers are allowed to sue any company that has registered to do business there - a clerical act mandated by law in all 50 states, whether or not a company is headquartered in that state or operates in the state in any significant way.
The system has led to courts in Philadelphia, in particular, becoming a haven for thousands of out-of-state claims against a host of companies over alleged toxic exposures. According to a May 28 report published by Mealy's Litigation Report, for instance, only 7 percent of more than 1,100 lawsuits against the makers of the pesticide Paraquat involve "a plaintiff who is either a Pennsylvania resident or alleges exposure within the state."
Such real-world examples have led business groups and other critics of the legislation to warn that SB328 would produce similar imbalances in Illinois' notoriously plaintiff-friendly courts in Cook County, Madison and St. Clair counties, and elsewhere in the state.
For their part, trial lawyers have pushed back on those claims, asserting the concerns are overblown and misleading. They say the legislation is needed to allow people to "pursue full accountability" against corporations, "including from out-of-state companies that do business in Illinois" over alleged claims that their products have injured or sickened people.
They assert the law is more limited in its scope than critics have claimed, in large part, because SB328 "applies only to injuries or deaths that result from substances defined in" Illinois state law and would still require plaintiffs to identify at least one Illinois-based co-defendant."
Opponents of the legislation, however, have said those claims downplay the full reach of the law, as lawsuits over toxic substance exposure already commonly include numerous corporate defendants and the Illinois Uniform Hazardous Substances Act includes a wide range of potential target products for lawsuits, including pesticides, such as in the Paraquat litigation embroiling Philadelphia's courts.
Mark Denzler, president and chief executive officer of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, has stood as one of the foremost leaders in a coalition of business groups attempting to persuade Pritzker to veto the legislation.
Denzler declined to discuss the likelihood Pritzker will sign the bill. Denzler said he would "defer to the governor's office" on when the governor may actually sign or veto SB328.
But Denzler said his coalition of SB328 opponents "are continuing to educate the governor and his team" about the bill's potential harmful effects on Illinois' economy, its reputation and its legal system.
Denzler again noted SB328 would make Illinois only the second state in the U.S., along with Pennsylvania, to allow such out-of-state claims.
At a time when Pritzker's administration has made strides in improving Illinois' business reputation, Denzler said this legislation will "send a negative message to job creators" to avoid the state and its increasingly unfriendly and risky legal environment.
"If they have a choice to do so, they will not look at Illinois as a place to invest or expand their presence," Denzler said.
Of SB328, Denzler said: "We hope he (Pritzker) would veto it."
Denzler noted the legislation is also legally and constitutionally controversial.
The legislation is currently the subject of a court challenge from Republican lawmakers, who argue the law is invalid under the Illinois state constitution. The state constitution requires legislative bills to be "read" on three separate days in both the state House and state Senate before they can be approved.
However, Democrats used an increasingly employed legislative tactic to push SB328 within hours of its introduction. And they are relying on a constitutionally questionable legal doctrine, known as the Enrolled Bill Doctrine, to uphold the law.
Established by the Illinois Supreme Court decades ago, the Enrolled Bill Doctrine essentially allows the Speaker of the Illinois House and the President of the state Senate to declare that all of the constitutional rules were followed when passing a new law.
Republicans and other critics of the practice and of SB328 say the passage of bills like SB328 make a mockery of that principle, essentially forcing the courts to refuse to acknowledge the reality of blatant constitutional violations by Democrats in passing such laws quickly and without debate.
"We believe really important bills that will meaningfully transform the state's economy and its legal system should be passed openly and transparently, with full opportunities for discussion and debate, not rushed through in the final hours," Denzler said.
Denzler said it is "frustrating" that Democratic state lawmakers and the state's courts repeatedly allow "the trial bar to unveil proposals in the closing hours" which serve to chiefly benefit the efforts of trial lawyers to file more lawsuits which impose a steeper risk and cost on the companies that fuel the state's economy and employ millions.
Illinois trial lawyers count among the most prolific of donors to Illinois Democrats, and particularly the state's two most powerful Democratic lawmakers, House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch and State Senate President Don Harmon.
Welch and Harmon, for instance, collectively received a combined $1.78 million from trial lawyers and their firms just in the final six months of 2024 alone.
Both Welch and Harmon signed on as sponsors to SB328, ensuring its passage through the Illinois General Assembly and on to Gov. Pritzker.
At the same time as SB328 faces a state constitutional challenge, the Pennsylvania law that serves as the template for SB328 also could face yet another round before the U.S. Supreme Court.
There, Syngenta, the company facing multi-billion dollar liability over Paraquat lawsuits, has asked the high court to strike down Pennsylvania's law, which they say unconstitutionally infringes their rights to due process, by allowing trial lawyers "forum shop" and press legal claims against them in a state in which they are not located and only nominally do business.
The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet decided if it will accept the case. But in a previous ruling barely upholding Pennsylvania's "consent by registration" regime, several justices on the high court appeared inclined to hear a challenge to the law based on the very claims Syngenta now brings.
Should the high court strike down the Pennsylvania law, it could also imperil SB328, were Pritzker to sign it into law in the face of such potentially risky constitutional headwinds.
The legislation also could carry potentially significant political risk for Pritzker, as well.
In recent months, Pritzker has repeatedly touted his goal of making Illinois "the best state to do business" in America.
At the same time, the governor has also appeared to seek to burnish his standing as a rising star in the national Democratic Party and a potential contender for president, perhaps as soon as 2028.
Pritzker, for instance, has been among the leading voices of criticism and resistance to the policies and goals of the Trump administration. In recent days, Pritzker has publicly provided shelter to Texas Democratic state lawmakers who have fled the Lone Star State in a bid to deny the Republican majority in that state a chance to vote on a plan to redraw Texas' congressional map and potentially increase Republicans' majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
However, critics have noted Pritzker continues to enact policies and provisions, potentially including SB328, that could make the state a national outlier and harm Illinois' economy, even as the governor appears to make his case to a national audience.
