Metro East Sun

 State Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Litchfield) views House Bill 843 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 at a news conference earlier this month about the measure Republican lawmakers say is meant to help them regain the equal voice they’re entitled to have. “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.”

HB 843 seeks to grant lawmakers the authority to be involved in all emergency orders after 30 days. The measure mandates that if the governor “issues a proclamation declaring a disaster, the Governor may extend the proclamation or make an additional proclamation regarding the same disaster, but the extension or additional proclamation shall be void and have no legal effect unless within 5 days of the extension or additional proclamation he or she receives written approval to extend the proclamation or make an additional proclamation from 3 legislative leaders or the General Assembly adopts a joint resolution approving the extension or additional proclamation.”

In addition, the bill outlines that a disaster proclamation issued, or a disaster proclamation regarding the same disaster, shall be void and have no legal effect if at any time the General Assembly adopts a joint resolution declaring the proclamation to be void.

“This is an issue of good government,” Bourne said. “We're here today to obviously push for Rep. (Dan) Ugaste’s (R-St. Charles) House Bill 843, but also to talk about the failures of the House and Senate Democrats in holding the governor accountable over the last 20 months.”

Bourne said this isn’t the first time Republicans have raised the issue.

“Every time that we bring this up and we say we need to pass a bill like this which will rein in the current and future governors, they bring up what they call the Restore Illinois Collaborative Commission, which was supposed to work in tandem with the governor throughout his pandemic response. We've yet to see any kind of teeth to that Commission.”

 Bourne said what needs to happen strikes her as clear.

“We need to restore a co-equal branch of authority which is the legislature,” she said. “We are having an in-person hearing today. We can do this as a legislature to hold the governor's staff accountable, the agencies. We've had issues with everything from IDES and unemployment to ISP and FOID.  We have seen many, many agencies that need to be held accountable, along with the governor continually issuing these orders.”