Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker regards a court challenge against his stay-home order as a cheap political stunt.

No, Guv, it’s the exercise of a legitimate constitutional right by a citizen to free himself, and by extension the rest of us, from your controversial public policy to confine Illinoisans in their homes until the end of next month.

You are unilaterally extending your emergency coronavirus shutdown to May

Judge Michael D. McHaney

30 without a by-your-leave from anyone else in the three branches of Illinois government. Not from the courts. Not from the Legislature. As if “separation of powers” was not to be found in the state constitution.

So Rep. Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) was right to go make you defend your policy in court and Clay County Circuit Court Judge Michael McHaney was right to find enough merit in Bailey’s suit to issue a temporary restraining order so the challenge could be heard on its merits.

And the media, displaying extraordinary incompetence or blatant bias grossly underreported the existence of the suit, as if it were of no consequence.

Now a second lawmaker, State Rep. John Cabello (R-Rockford) has filed his own suit in Winnebago County Circuit Court to block the stay-home order. Unlike Bailey’s suit, Cabello asks that the decision not just to him but “all citizens.”

Northbrook attorney Michael Ciesla, who started the ball rolling on these challenges, said that the governor should take no comfort in the limited application of Judge McHaney’s to only Bailey.

In “Think the court order only applies to Representative Bailey? Think again,” Ciesla said:

Governor Pritzker knows what most attorneys know: the ruling yesterday, while issued in favor of Representative Bailey, could apply to every citizen in Illinois.  When a state court judge issues an order in Illinois, it in effect becomes a law.  Meaning, Representative Bailey can walk out of his home for any or no reason and cannot be cited or arrested for failure to obey the Governor’s stay at home order….

Since no other court has issued a ruling on the Governor’s Executive Orders, Judge McHaney’s court order is the only ruling on the Executive Orders.  Therefore, precedence has been set by the State court giving negative treatment to the Governor’s Executive Order on isolation and quarantine.

This means every person in Illinois could run to court right now and file a similar lawsuit against the Governor and use the court order to support his/her request for relief from the Governor’s Executive Order for isolation and quarantine….

Ciesla acknowledges that it’s unlikely that the Democrat-controlled would grant such relief, yet, now with a second suit filed and the possibility that more are in the offing, Pritzker will have no choice but to defend his illegal action.

True, the Legislature can come back into session and change the law, giving Pritzker the unfettered powers that he falsely believes to be his, but now, possibly for the first time in America, citizen anger at the shutdown has been granted a legal platform by a judge.

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www.dennisbyrne.net 

My historical novel: Madness: The War of 1812

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