Sen. Darren Bailey | Senator Darren Bailey/Twitter
Sen. Darren Bailey | Senator Darren Bailey/Twitter
Sen. Darren Bailey (R-Louisville), an Illinois gubernatorial candidate, recently praised a judge's temporary restraining order against the state's school mask mandate.
Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge Raylene Grischow issued the order Friday against Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois Department of Public Health, and multiple school districts around the state, according to a WCIA report.
The ruling temporarily suspends all authority to enforce the student mask requirement or to require staff immunizations or testing.
"As your next governor, I will repeal all of Pritzker’s mandates," Bailey announced on Facebook. "You should make these decisions, not government"
A series of lawsuits had been launched against Pritzker's regulations after he issued a school mask order in early August in response to a COVID-19 delta strain outbreak as schools prepared for the start of another academic year, according to a WGLT report.
Parents had filed lawsuits against a total of 146 school districts in response to the state's mask requirement, while school employees filed lawsuits against another 21 districts, claiming that the additional requirement for periodic COVID testing amounted to coercive medical treatment.
According to the 29-page ruling issued by Grischow, masks, vaccinations, and testing are all deemed quarantine measures that may only be implemented after a hearing before the state's Department of Public Health or municipal health departments has taken place.
Grischow also concluded that students and teachers had been denied due process as a consequence of Pritzker's executive orders.
"This type of evil is exactly what the law was intended to constrain," Grischow stated in her opinion on the ruling.
Pritzker, who pledged to take the case to a higher court just hours after Grischow's ruling, has enlisted the aid of the Illinois Attorney General's Office in requesting an expedited appeal to the state's 4th District Appellate Court.
The governor argues that eliminating the mandates would increase COVID-19 cases and push schools back to remote learning.
Alerts Sign-up