Kane County Reporter

Illinois House Republicans hope to end what they call the "ongoing State of Emergency" of numerous emergency executive orders issued by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rep. Dan Ugaste (R-Geneva) has introduced legislation that would make adjustments to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act and require either three legislative leaders or the passage of a joint resolution in the General Assembly in order for the governor to extend or make an additional order on the same disaster, according to the Illinois General Assembly's website. 

"The last 20 months we have had one-person rule our state, operating under a continual emergency declaration. In fact, today he's made 91 such orders," Ugaste said during a press conference. "That's 91 times the constituents, business owners and families and the entire legislative body have been silenced."

Ugaste said Pritzker has relied on an "ambiguous section" of the Illinois Emergency Management Act to make continual emergency declarations during the global health crisis. 

"My House Bill 843 would guarantee that executive powers are kept in check and that the legislature is not denied its role in governing the state," Ugaste said during the press conference. "It's important that as members of the legislature we are able to act on the concerns of the people in our district and governing at all times and only in the most extreme circumstances should the executive be allowed to act alone."

Ugaste said it's a lawmaker's job to be the voice for the people they represent, and despite his efforts to make changes during the last General Assembly, Democrats failed to let the bill have a hearing. 

"These actions or the lack of actions as the case may be, that of the governor and the majority party have denied a co-equal branch of government and the people, their voice to be heard in the state," he said. 

Rep. Norine Hammond (R-Macomb) and House Republican Floor Leader Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) joined Ugaste in calling for more legislative involvement in any future executive orders related to emergency situations such as the pandemic.

"Governor Pritzker has issued an extended disaster declaration since the beginning of this pandemic with little to no input from legislators," Hammond said during the press conference.  "Everything from the initial stay-at-home to regional mitigations and masks and vaccine mandates, the Democratic majority has abdicated the responsibility to serve as a co-equal branch of our government, has ceded that authority to Governor Pritzker again and again."

Batinick said he’s long stressed to the governor that there needs to be public buy-in for the actions that he takes on the pandemic.

“We’re meant to have legislative input for a reason,” he said. “And it's also a matter of trust a little bit. I think you're seeing a lack of trust in government. I think it's pretty fair to say there's a big lack of trust for many of our citizens because of the lack of transparency. You know you have elected officials that maybe take statistics and data out of context pretty significantly. And if we were to have a more open and transparent process, I think you’d probably have more compliance with what we're doing and more trust.

“Things needed to make sense to people,” he said. “And right now, I feel like we're losing the public buy-in on the pandemic and how to move forward.”

 State Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Litchfield) views Ugaste's bill as the first step for legislators taking back their power.

“This bill is a small step to rein in the executive authority of Gov. Pritzker,” Bourne said. “This is a super common-sense thing. I'm hopeful we can find a bipartisan group to support it, because they are certainly hearing it from their constituents just as we all are hearing it from our constituents. Their vote for us was to be lawmakers; they did not vote for Gov. Pritzker to run the state by executive order.”

All of the House Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors for the bill.