Illinois State Attorney General Kwame Raoul is appealing the temporary restraining order (TRO) that the Fourth Circuit Court issued against Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home directive for Illinois citizens, which the governor promulgated for our own good, of course (ostensibly to slow the spread of the coronavirus).
In his petition to the Fifth District Appellate Court, Raoul argues that the TRO should be vacated because it “ignores the Governor’s independent authority under the Illinois Constitution to take the actions [State Rep. Darren] Bailey challenged [and] contradicts the longstanding practice by numerous governors of issuing multiple and often successive emergency disaster proclamations.”
These are not the most compelling arguments ever offered by an attorney general.
Just because the authority of the executive branch is separate from that of the legislative or judicial branch does not mean that there are no checks and balances on it.
Government officials – in all three branches – sometimes try to assert powers they do not possess, or to exceed limits on ones accorded to them, and it’s most often during “emergencies” that they try to pull these fast ones (cf., Rahm’s Rules of Disorder).
The fact that Illinois governors have had a “longstanding practice” of “issuing multiple and often successive emergency disaster proclamations” is no guarantee of legality. More likely, it represents an ongoing, uncontested abuse, one that highlights the sad truth that we are not the citizens our predecessors were. Instead of fiercely independent men and women, we are submissive ninnies.
Raoul also argues that the TRO “improperly disrupts the status quo and places undue weight on the personal harm to Bailey as compared with the immense public health crisis that will occur should Bailey and others cease compliance with the Governor’s orders.”
This line of reasoning is even more disturbing. Since when is the status quo something that must be preserved at all costs, and the (improper?) disruption of it a grave offense? Since when is “compliance with the Governor’s orders” more important than “personal harm,” that being a weaselly euphemism for God-given, constitutionally-protected rights?