State Senator Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) issued the following statement after the Joint Committee of Administrative Rules (JCAR) successfully objected to the Pritzker Administration’s attempt to reissue emergency rules that could have required most school districts to enforce the Governor’s school mask mandate despite a recent court ruling. JCAR voted to block the emergency rules with a bipartisan 9-0-2 vote:
“Today the Governor learned that no matter how big his ego may be, he is not the dictator of Illinois and is not above the rule of law.
“For far too long, the Governor has exerted his will to control every aspect of our pandemic response. When our co-equal judicial branch pushed back on his unilateral control, I had hoped that he would have reevaluated his continuous go-it-alone approach and allow the process to work. Instead, he decided to double down on masking students despite a court ruling that nullified his original rules.
“If JCAR had not voted to block the Governor’s attempt to circumvent our court system, schools who finally regained their local control would have been immediately thrown into chaos and left confused. Even the Governor’s legislative allies made it clear that he went too far with their bipartisan vote.”