“Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s SuperPritzker!”
If you have trouble imagining Gov. JB Pritzker moving fast enough and getting enough lift to get airborne, join the club. His emergency powers are real, however, though nowhere near as extensive as he seems to think.
In fact, they’ve been challenged – by the Edwardsville/Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce, State Rep. Darren Bailey and others.
Bailey persuaded the Fourth Circuit Court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the governor’s stay-at-home directive.
“What? My emergency powers are limited? I don’t think so. I can do whatever I want now.”
That was the gist of Pritzker’s response to Bailey’s challenge, expressed less bluntly in State Atty. Gen. Kwame Raoul’s appeal of the TRO to the Fifth District Appellate Court.
“Gov. Pritzker’s executive orders have effectively transformed Illinois into an autocracy in a matter of weeks,” State Sen. Jason Plummer of Edwardsville protested, urging the U.S. Dept. of Justice to intervene. “The Governor is depriving Illinoisans of their constitutional rights and, when the people seek redress, he is grotesquely using state police power to threaten and intimidate citizens, businesses, and local units of government who dare question or challenge his seized authority.”
That’s what SuperPritzker is doing all right, and he’s going to keep on doing it until he is stopped.
“The process by which Governor Pritzker has handled this crisis is shocking, has shredded the separation of powers, and sets a terrible precedent that must not be allowed to stand,” Plummer asserted. “The total damage Governor Pritzker has done to families, workers, and job creators in this state is so large as to be currently immeasurable and unfathomable.”
Fortunately, the U.S. DOJ has intervened, supporting Bailey’s appropriately narrow interpretation of the state law regarding a governor’s emergency powers – and opposing Pritzker’s effort to move the challenge against his overly broad interpretation of them to federal court.
Now’s the time to let Pritzker know that we’ve had enough and we’re not going to take it anymore.
It will take leadership at every level, as shown by our local Chamber, with this message to the governor:
“It is critical that our job creators have the opportunity to get back to work, re-employ staff, and responsibly welcome customers back through their doors without the fear of state licensure revocation.”