By Ted Cox

The head of the “extreme right” Illinois Policy Institute has filed a suit seeking to throw the state’s finances into chaos by scrapping $14 billion in bonds — some issued 16 years ago.

John Tillman, IPI chief executive officer, filed the suit in Sangamon County Circuit Court, joined by the Warlander Asset Management hedge fund. According to a Bloomberg News story, they’re borrowing a tactic recently used in an attempt to nullify Puerto Rican bonds.

But leading state officials — including those named in the suit, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Treasurer Michael Frerichs, and Comptroller Susana Mendoza — see the case as an extension of an old Tillman tactic embraced by former Gov. Bruce Rauner: an attempt to drive the state into bankruptcy to force concessions on unions.

“This is simply a new tactic from the extreme right to interfere in capital markets,” said Pritzker spokeswoman Emily Bittner in a statement. “We’re done with the far right’s dangerous financial games to pull Illinois underwater. We saw this repeatedly under Bruce Rauner, who funded and executed on John Tillman’s pathological focus to drive Illinois into bankruptcy.”

According to Bloomberg, the suit cites pension bonds issued in 2003 and other bonds in 2017 used to reduce the state’s debt on unpaid bills, and suggests they somehow violated the state constitution. Bittner and Mendoza both insisted the bonds were fully vetted, above board, and useful.

“Several layers of bond counsel and Attorney General Lisa Madigan were required to sign off on bond offerings, and these met those standards,” Bittner said. “This lawsuit is not worth the paper it’s written on.”

Prefacing her statement, “I prefer not to comment on pending litigation,” Mendoza quickly added, “But with a ridiculous-on-its-face filing like this, I’ll make an exception” and went on to offer a blistering response to the suit.