Illinois Appeals Court Reignites GO Bond Challenge

On August 6, 2020, an Illinois appellate court ruled that a petition by political activist John Tillman seeking leave to invalidate approximately $16 billion of Illinois's general obligation bonds (“GO Bonds”) should be permitted to go forward.¹ The Fourth District Appellate Court of Illinois reversed an August 2019 order by Judge Jack D. Davis, II,² who had held that the challenged bonds did not violate a provision of the Illinois Constitution requiring long-term debt to be for a “specific purpose” and who had indicated more broadly that the validity of the bond issuances constituted “a non-justiciable political question.” The appellate court did not engage with Judge Davis's merits rulings, instead holding that the standard for granting leave to file a taxpayer suit requires only “a reasonable ground for the filing of a suit,” and that the standard was satisfied here because Tillman's complaint was not “frivolous or malicious” and Tillman's reading of the Illinois