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• 1 2021-01-25T12:26:09-06:00 The Referendum Under Scrutiny 20 plain 2023-11-03T10:30:28-05:00 Forest Preserve opponents challenged the 1910 referendum shortly after it passed. They had two objections. The first came from Democratic Party leaders in Cook County. The referendum would have created a Forest Preserve Board, whose members were to be appointed by William Busse, a Republican who was the outgoing president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. 
  
  The second objection was raised by John E. W. Wayman, the state’s attorney for Cook County. He feared that the Forest Preserve Board would have the power to tax “arbitrarily” because its members would not have to answer to the voters. They were to be appointed, not elected, but they would have the power to issue bonds for which taxpayers would be liable. Wayman brought suit.
  
  The resulting court case, People v. Rinaker, made its way to the Illinois Supreme Court in 1911. The Court invalidated the Forest Preserve Act of 1909, but not on the grounds the opponents raised. The act, the Court said, violated equal protection guarantees in the state constitution. “Equal protection” refers to the prohibition against laws, or “special legislation,” that arbitrarily favor one group of people over another. The Forest Preserve referendum allowed for only one district per county, and once a district was set up, residents in other parts of the same county were not permitted to create a second district. Therefore, in the court's opinion, the act arbitrarily favored whichever group of citizens petitioned first to have a forest preserve district.