There's A Reason They Keep Losing
By my count, with a little organizing help from Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office, there have been at least 27 separate lawsuits filed against Governor JB Pritzker or other officials related to Pritzker’s executive orders or enforcement of those orders.
Also, by my count, the Governor has lost two of those in court. The first was from a friendly judge for State Representative Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) in his home county. The second was a temporary restraining order for a restaurant in Kane County in the Chicago suburbs.
But Bailey withdrew his suit before it was surely to be overturned by an Appellate Court in Springfield. The TRO in Kane County was overturned by a Republican Appellate Judge, former DuPage County State’s Attorney and GOP Attorney General nominee Joe Birkett.
So the home team is batting .000.
Let’s back up.
All of this started after Governor JB Pritzker extended his stay at home order this spring after more than 30 days. Bailey, a one-term State Representative from southeastern Illinois with no legislative accomplishments other than winning the most Republican seat in the Senate this fall with nominal opposition, decided he would use Pritzker’s actions, and unpopularity downstate, to his political advantage.
All you have to do is listen to the words coming out of Bailey’s mouth to know he either has no grasp of the law or he’s not even believing his own BS. He, along with attorney Tom DeVore of Greenville, have become a traveling Abbott and Costello around the state urging businesses, restaurant owners, and others to defy Pritzker’s executive orders and to question whether the pandemic is actually making people sick.
So much for the party of law & order.
Here’s the thing about the Governor’s executive orders: nobody has ever questioned them before. If there was flooding or tornado damage in a community, nobody batted an eye when it required an extension of a disaster declaration (which is clearly defined in statute.)
Now Bailey and DeVore have convinced a segment of the population that they’re these freedom fighters in ill-fitting sportcoats and JB Pritzker’s attempts to save lives are illegal. Instead of trying to help save lives, these guys are trying to advance their own interests.
Obviously, DeVore is trying to sucker struggling business owners to pay him to go to court on their behalf, where they’ll assuredly lose. Bailey, it appears, is trying to boost his standing among conservatives for an attempted run for Governor in two years (which he can’t win because he can’t raise money.)
If Bailey and DeVore were serious about helping small businesses survive through this pandemic, now deep into a second wave, they’d come to the table and try to, you know, help. Governor Pritzker went from a reduction of dining to closing dining rooms completely. Pritzker has surely had a superiority complex about his actions thus far, but if someone like Bailey would have gone to bat for restaurants to find some middle ground, maybe there would be fewer restaurant and bar owners desperately breaking the law.
When these cases get to the Supreme Court, I’d be willing to bet an hour of Tom Devore’s billing that there is a 100% chance the Pritzker EO’s get upheld. It doesn’t take a genius to see the law an the constitution are on his side in this debate. Does it make him right? I don’t think so.
But Pritzker is doing what he thinks is right, and that’s about all you can ask for out of an elected official.
It doesn’t make him a tyrant or a communist or any of the horrible things you see written about him on social media. He can be wrong, but do you really think it does JB Pritzker any good to see unemployment skyrocket and the state to lose more income and sales tax revenue? Of course not.
Stop listening to the snake-oil salesmen. Start thinking critically. It is perfectly acceptable to disagree with a Governor’s action without it violating our constitutional rights or meaning he should go to prison.
Read the Illinois Emergency Management Act. It’s all pretty clear cut, and I’m not even a lawyer.
If I can figure it out, surely Bailey and DeVore can, too. Or maybe they can’t.
That’s why they keep losing.