South Cook News

Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau is beating back against Gov. J.B Pritzker’s latest extension of emergency executive orders. 

“IYMI - Governor Pritzker just issued another Executive Order to extend his COVID powers. WHEN will the IL General Assembly do their job and hold him accountable? In theory, we don't live in a dictatorship and should not allow him to act like one,” Pekau said on Twitter.

Back in December, Pritzker extended his own emergency powers a 37th time. “WHEREAS, based on the foregoing facts, and the ongoing health and economic impacts that will be felt over the coming month by people across the State, the current circumstances in Illinois surrounding the spread of COVID-19 constitute an epidemic emergency and a public health emergency under Section 4 of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act,” the emergency declaration reads in part.

Illinois is an outlier in its continued emergency declarations nearly three years after the pandemic struck. 

“Pritzker can keep wielding emergency powers as long as he deems Illinois a disaster,” Illinois Policy reports. 

“The Illinois General Assembly – a coequal branch of state government – has no oversight into executive disaster orders.” 

“Lawmakers have also shown no interest in limiting how often Pritzker re-issues orders for the same emergency, despite his executive powers circumventing the checks and balances guaranteed by representative government.”

State Senator Darren Bailey (R-Xenia), the GOP’s 2022 candidate for governor, previously said Illinois no longer need be in a state of emergency. “Illinois is one of only a handful of states with an emergency order still in place,” Bailey said in a statement. 

“The virus is not going away any time soon, but the governor’s executive emergency order needs to go away.”