Illinois: Appellate Court tosses out Dolton recall law

Interesting decision here (and great write-up by Phil Kadner at the Chicago Tribune) -- right after the Dolton recall failed to get on the ballot due to a lack of signatures, the Illinois Appellate Court overruled the lower court decision and held that the village's recall law was unconstitutional. The basis of the ruling focuses on the technical issues of whether a home rule municipality has the power to enact a law that can limiting an elected officials term without having the voters approve the law by referendum.

Most of the law is very Illinois specific, but we've seen the  technical questions of this sort crop up in other states. I argued that the attempted recall of the Ferguson, Missouri mayor could have been tossed out due to a similar question of city classification, as it was for Ellisville, Missouri. IT does show once again that challenging a recall in court can pay off.