Chambana Sun

State Rep. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville) admits he’s left wondering about Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s latest actions on the school mask mandate front.

“Pritzker’s mandate for schools was deemed null and void by a circuit judge,” Halbrook posted on Facebook. “What part of ‘null and void’ does Gov. J.B Pritzker not understand?”

Even as he recently announced plans to lift masks mandates for most indoor activities by month’s end, Pritzker said he plans to keep his executive order requiring masks in place for schools, despite a judge rendering a temporary restraining order prohibiting certain schools from enforcing the mandate.  

With the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations both falling across the state, Republican lawmakers are insisting the governor’s actions don’t go far enough in helping life start to get back to normal for residents.  

“The governor has different mitigation standards for kids in a classroom than he does somebody going to a bar or a casino or anything else,” state Rep. Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City) said during a recent news conference in Springfield.

In highlighting the governor’s critical assessment of the judge’s ruling, state Rep. Adam Niemerg (R-Dieterich) also points to what he sees as a double standard.

“I think it’s massively hypocritical, for the governor to talk about one person making a decision when he’s been a one-man rule for the last 20 months,” he said.

Pritzker reenacted his indoor mask mandate in late August after COVID hospitalizations again started to spike.

Noting that COVID hospitalizations across the state have recently been down by as much as 60%, Rep. Jim Durkin (R-Burr Ridge) recently penned a letter to Pritzker reading, "Governor, it has been a long two years and the people deserve to know what you are doing. Your lack of plan has forced people to give up hope that they can ever have a normal life in Illinois."