If policing and public education are especially resistant to reform and oversight in the state of Illinois, one reason is an extraordinary state law that provides for union contract provisions to override the state’s ordinary laws and regulations. In a report last year for the Illinois Policy Institute, Mailee Smith explained how this works to insulate police misconduct from correction:

Hidden near the end of the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act, or IPLRA, is a provision entitled “Act Takes Precedence.” That section explicitly details that when a contract between a government unit – such as a police department – and a union is in conflict with any other law or regulation, the contract prevails.

In other words, state law must cede to policies in a document that has been negotiated by an unelected, unaccountable third party.

That includes any police reforms that run counter to provisions in a police union’s contract.

The city of Chicago’s contract with the Fraternal Order of Police, Smith observes, includes provisions that “impede investigation of complaints [against officers], bias the investigations that do occur and create a veil of secrecy that keeps the public in the dark.” It doesn’t matter whether some future Chicago city council or the state legislature itself tries to enact better rules on discipline; so long as ILPRA is on the books, the union contract prevails and the reforms may be void. That’s true even when new contract clauses are adopted after the law they are meant to nullify. If it all sounds like a mockery of democratic control of police (and of schools, prisons, and other agencies), that’s because it is.

But things could get yet worse — and might. Not content with a statute putting their interests above those of voters in the control of public services, Illinois public unions and their allies have now arranged to place on the 2022 ballot a measure that would constitutionalize the whole thing through a newly minted “right to collective bargaining.” It’s being done through a ballot amendment billed as keeping Illinois from becoming a “right-to-work” state (which was not going to happen any decade soon anyway, given the state’s politics). As Joe Tabor explains for Illinois Policy, a narrower earlier wording would have sufficed to accomplish that goal, but far broader language was added. The amendment, approved by both houses of the legislature, now specifies the following: “No law shall be passed that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively over their wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and work place safety.” Tabor:

This amendment would put union contracts above laws passed by the democratically elected representatives of the people of Illinois and could prevent limits on the subjects of collective bargaining for public employees. For example, the General Assembly could pass a law mandating a certain level of background check for school bus drivers, or disciplinary procedures for teacher misconduct. Given that unions could challenge such laws as violating workers’ constitutional right to bargain collectively over such terms and conditions of employment, the amendment could potentially prevent such statutes from taking effect. It could also undo any measures that would rein in public school teachers’ right to strike.

The amendment could also put taxpayers on the hook for more costly provisions, as everything would be up for grabs in bargaining over government union contracts.

Public services need more accountability, not less.