SPRINGFIELD — A California-based organization calling itself Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender hoped to file as a nonprofit in Illinois, but instead they filed suit Tuesday against Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias over the right to use the word “Democrat” in its name.
The newly filed federal lawsuit highlights a little-known provision of Illinois law barring organizations from incorporating under names containing the words “democrat,” “democratic” or “republican” without the consent of the corresponding party’s state central committee.
Passed and signed in 1988 by moderate GOP Gov. Jim Thompson, the law was used at the time as retribution against the United Republican Fund, a conservative fundraising group that opposed several Thompson initiatives. Even then, questions were raised about the law’s infringement on First Amendment rights, although the measure was never seriously challenged in court.
Now, it’s in the crosshairs as the California group — which describes itself as being made up of “Democrats, or now politically homeless former Democrats” who oppose their party’s stance on transgender policy — alleges the statute unlawfully restricts their rights by forcing them to obtain approval from Democratic Party of Illinois leadership before they can legally form as a nonprofit in the state.
Giannoulias, a Democrat, is named as the sole defendant because his office enforces the law. A spokesperson for Giannoulias said the office hadn’t yet seen the lawsuit and would not comment on it.
Illinois Democratic Party spokesperson Gwen Pepin had no comment on the lawsuit and did not address whether the party supported the law. Pepin added that she doesn’t remember the state party ever rejecting a nonprofit’s name.
If Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender, or DIAG, cannot become an incorporated nonprofit in Illinois, they won’t be able to legally solicit donations from Illinois residents in person or on their website.
The organization applied to incorporate three times in 2025, but the secretary of state’s office rejected their applications in July, August and December, according to the complaint. In all three applications, DIAG chose not to seek the Democratic State Central Committee’s permission because the requirement amounts to an unlawful prior restraint on speech, the suit states.
“Illinois is the only state to tell us we can’t fundraise there,” DIAG Secretary Jenny Poyer Ackerman said. “We don’t think we need anyone’s permission to call ourselves what we are, which is proud, lifelong Democrats.”
While First Amendment concerns have long been tied to the 1988 law, they haven’t played much of a practical role in Illinois’ political landscape. After the law was signed, the United Republican Fund threatened to sue, along with nearly a dozen other organizations.
“This measure amounts to a gag order on political dissent in Illinois, and it reaches far beyond the United Republican Fund,” Steven Baer, the executive director of the group, said at the time. But the lawsuit never got far in court. Baer later ran for governor in the GOP primary against Republican Jim Edgar and lost.
Outside of the URF, other organizations are technically subject to the law, but so far, they haven’t made waves about it. The Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, for instance, said it has never had an issue with the statute, with Chicago DSA Co-Chair Sean Duffy saying it was incorporated before the law went into effect.
“The word ‘democrat’ in our name is not supposed to imply an association with the Democratic Party but an association with democracy,” Duffy said.
In its lawsuit, DIAG states it opposes gender-affirming care and wants the Democratic Party to withdraw its support for transgender issues.
The group states that, unlike the Democratic Party of Illinois, it supports “evidence-based care for those with distress about their sex and the protection of sex-based rights of women and girls. (And) to support its advocacy, DIAG wants to solicit charitable contributions in Illinois. … But Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is enforcing a law that prevents DIAG from exercising First Amendment rights without prior approval.”
DIAG filed the suit with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, an organization that provides legal support on First Amendment issues and is most commonly associated with free speech issues on college campuses and its opposition to political correctness in education.
But, in recent years, the nonpartisan organization has broadened its focus beyond higher education.
The group filed a lawsuit in August against the federal government, on behalf of Stanford University’s college newspaper, to defend the free press rights of the paper’s international students who feared retaliation if they wrote about Palestine. The suit challenged two immigration statutes that allow the U.S. secretary of state to revoke an international student’s visa “at any time” and begin the process of deportation if a student’s speech “compromised” the government’s foreign policy interests.
FIRE successfully sued Chicago State University in 2014 for attempting to shut down two university professors’ blogs that criticized university administrators. The group successfully defended a University of Washington professor after the school fired him for parodying the school’s Native American land acknowledgment. FIRE also successfully sued Clovis Community College in California after administrators removed anti-communism student posters from school bulletin boards.
FIRE attorney Daniel Zahn said even if DIAG had been willing to change its name, the result may not have been any different. DIAG might not be able to incorporate under a different name in Illinois because its “true corporate name” still includes the word Democrat, he added.
According to Zahn, Illinois is the only state requiring that organizations receive consent from state political party leaders to use the words “Democrat” or “Republican” in their name.
“Illinois can’t get around the First Amendment by outsourcing the censorship to political parties,” Zahn said.