Illinois bonds rallied yesterday after a judge denied a petition by the head of a conservative think tank that sought to invalidate more than $14 billion of debt issued by the state, Bloomberg News reported. Sangamon County Associate Judge Jack Davis yesterday rejected the petition filed by John Tillman, head of the Illinois Policy Institute, and backed by Warlander Asset Management, a New York-based hedge fund, that sought to “restrain and enjoin the disbursement of public funds,” according to court documents. Tillman had claimed that Illinois’s record pension bond sale in 2003 and debt issued in 2017 were deficit financing that violated the state constitution, which says bonds must be issued for “specific purposes.” “The court finds that to allow the filing of the Complaint would result in an unjustified interference with the application of public funds,” Davis wrote in an order yesterday. “The court finds reasonable grounds do not exist for filing the proposed Complaint.” Tillman said that he plans to appeal and “strongly” disagrees with the court’s decision, adding that it was “premature for the Court to decide the case on the merits at the petition stage.”
