Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-09-02219/USCOURTS-ca7-09-02219-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 441
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Voting
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

July 22, 2010

Before

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

JOHN DANIEL TINDER, Circuit Judge

No. 09-2219

GERALD A. JUDGE and DAVID

KINDLER,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

PATRICK J. QUINN, Governor of the

State of Illinois, and ROLAND W.

BURRIS, U.S. Senator,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District

of Illinois

No. 09 C 1231

John F. Grady, Judge.

O R D E R

On June 28, 2010, Defendant-Appellee Patrick J. Quinn filed a “Motion to Amend

Opinion or, in the Alternative, Petition for Rehearing En Banc, of Defendant-Appellee Patrick

J. Quinn, Governor of the State of Illinois.” As ordered by the court, Plaintiffs-Appellants filed

their response to that motion on July 7, 2010. The court construes the motion as a petition for

rehearing or rehearing en banc.

On consideration of the petition, so understood, all of the judges on the original panel

have voted to deny rehearing, and no judge in active service has requested a vote on the

Case: 09-2219 Document: 28 Filed: 07/22/2010 Pages: 2
No. 09-2219 Page 2

petition for rehearing en banc. It is therefore ORDERED that the petition for rehearing en banc

is DENIED.

It is further ORDERED that the opinion of the court is revised as follows. On page 38, line

19, the following language is deleted:

However Illinois conducts its election for the vacancy, the replacement senator

presumably would present his or her credentials to the Senate and take office

immediately, while the senator elected to begin service with the 112th Congress

would not take office until January 3, 2011.

In its place, the following two new paragraphs are added:

The district court has the power to order the state to take steps to bring

its election procedures into compliance with rights guaranteed by the federal

Constitution, even if the order requires the state to disregard provisions of state

law that otherwise might ordinarily apply to cause delay or prevent action

entirely. It is elementary that the Seventeenth Amendment’s requirement that

a state governor issue a writ of election to guarantee that a vacancy in the state’s

senate delegation is filled by an election is an aspect of the supreme law of the

land. U.S. CONST. art VI, cl. 2. To the extent that Illinois law makes compliance

with a provision of the federal Constitution difficult or impossible, it is Illinois

law that must yield. See Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495 (2000) (holding that statelaw rules governing elections of trustees to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs

violated the Fifteenth Amendment); Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330 (1972)

(striking down state-law durational residency requirements as unconstitutional

under the Fourteenth Amendment); Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S.

663 (1966) (holding that state-law poll taxes violated the Fourteenth

Amendment).

However Illinois conducts its election for the vacancy, the state should

endeavor to certify the results of that election as soon as possible, so that the

replacement senator may present his or her credentials to the Senate and take

office promptly. The senator elected to begin service with the 112th Congress

will take office as the Constitution provides on January 3, 2011. U.S. CONST.

amend. XX, sec. 1.

In all other respects, the petition for rehearing is DENIED.

Case: 09-2219 Document: 28 Filed: 07/22/2010 Pages: 2