Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker will ask a Springfield judge to keep his school mask and student exclusion mandates in place, while the governor appeal that judge’s ruling declaring Pritzker had illegally imposed the mandates.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, representing Pritzker, says his office has filed a motion with Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow to stay her ruling. Pritzker and Raoul have already pledged to appeal the ruling to the Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court in Springfield.
According to the motion, Raoul expects the governor’s appeal to be decided relatively quickly, within two weeks.
So, Raoul argued leaving Pritzker’s rules requiring schools to force all students and anyone entering Illinois schools to wear masks, will present only a “minimal inconvenience associated with wearing a mask, or the possibility of a brief exclusion from school premises during the pendency of an appeal.”
They said that stands opposed to more substantial disruptions that the state believes could occur if Grischow’s temporary restraining order remains in place, potentially including disruption to “the ability of schools to continue in-person instruction” and causing “an increase in sickness, and possibly death.”
That assertion comes even as COVID cases continue to rapidly fall from their January peaks in Illinois, as well as in neighboring states which do not require masks in schools or any other indoor settings.
Further, in his motion to stay, Raoul assailed the findings of Judge Grischow, that the state has violated Illinois’ students’ and parents’ rights to due process, in unilaterally imposing a mask mandate with no ability to formally object, as the judge ruled should be required by Illinois public health laws.
She said requiring masks, and setting rules to exclude students from school over possible COVID exposure, is a form of modified quarantine, and was considered to be so under Illinois public health law and guidelines, until Pritzker and the IDPH used “emergency rules” to redefine the legal definitions of quarantine last September, when the state reimposed a school mask mandate.
Grischow said quarantine powers are given under state law only to the IDPH and local health departments.
She said, in her opinion, Pritzker and IDPH had decided to take that route to undermine the due process rights that would have otherwise been afforded to students and parents under the Illinois Department of Public Health Act.
Grischow declared Pritzker’s emergency rules to be null and void, because they violated state law.
The blow to Pritzker’s authority came as the result of a massive lawsuit filed on behalf of hundreds of students and parents statewide who asserted Pritzker had illegally imposed the school masking and student exclusion rules.
A spokesperson for the Illinois Attorney General said the motion to stay Grischow’s temporary restraining order was filed on the evening of Friday, Feb. 4. The Attorney General’s office did not provide the Cook County Record with a copy of the motion containing a file stamp from the court clerk.
Tom Devore, an attorney representing the students and parents, said he did not believe the motion had been filed yet.
“If and when it’s actually filed with the court, we will ask for a brief time to respond and set it for hearing,” Devore said, adding “I don’t see any of this being an issue until next week.”