Since the passage of Senate Bill 328, there has been a movement calling on Illinois Governor Pritzker to veto Senate Bill 328. Advocates for the veto include the American Tort Reform Association, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, and the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association. Forty-seven House and Senate Republicans joined the call on June 17, 2025, by filing a lawsuit in Sangamon County, Illinois, Tony McCombie, et al vs. Emmanuel Chris Welch in his Capacity as Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives and Don Harmon in his Capacity as President of the Illinois Senate, Case No. 2024MR000281 (Seventh Judicial Circuit Court, Sangamon County, 2025), challenging the constitutionality of the manner in which the legislation was passed.
Plaintiffs allege that Senate Bill 328 was passed using the “gut and replace” method whereby a major piece of legislation was introduced and passed in just a few hours. Per the Complaint, “[t]he bill’s final language was sprung on the General Assembly on May 31, 2025, in the waning hours of this spring’s legislative session, by a floor amendment (House Floor Amendment 2) that completely replaced the language that had existed in SB 328 to that point, which had addressed the totally unrelated topic of amendments to pleadings and e-filing under Section 2-616 of the Code of Civil Procedure.” The Complaint now seeks to void the legislation.
The 15-page lawsuit specifically asks the Court to re-visit the “Enrolled Bill Doctrine.” This doctrine, accepted by the courts in the past, holds that once the leaders of both chambers have signed off on a bill, the Three Reading Rule is presumptively met. The Plaintiffs point to an Illinois Supreme Court case challenging the “Enrolled Bill Doctrine,” where the court noted that the legislature “has shown remarkable poor self-discipline in policing itself in regard to the Three Reading Rule.” The court reserved its right to revisit the issue, and the 47 Plaintiffs in the current challenging Senate Bill 328 are inviting it to do so.
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