Your Money, Your Freedom, and Your Future
Illinois politicians, led by Governor Pritzker and his Democrat party have completely lost any semblance of moderation or commonsense. They are using their power in abusive and nefarious ways. Forcing businesses into bankruptcy and forcing taxpayers to fund programs that are a complete waste of money, harmful to our economy, gratuitous payments to favored constituencies, and/or all of the above.
This state is a haven for progressive ideology which has accelerated under the Pritzker regime, and as you will see in some of the items I highlight in this newsletter, that ideology is ubiquitous from Chicago to small towns. Calling Illinois the Land of Lincoln today is to denigrate the values that Lincoln embodied. Lincoln invokes values of prudence, courage, equality, fairness, service to others, and plain old commonsense. Illinois policies passed by clueless politicians and supported by bureaucrats and businesses unwilling to speak up for fear of retaliation define the state now.
As with everything, this is not to say that there are not good, honest, and productive businesses, non-profits, and residents in this state – of course, there are and in fact, the majority of people are good people – but the ruling party in this state are oblivious to truth, fairness, and our constitutional rights. For the electorate that keeps them in power, when will enough be enough? When will the majority care about how their money is being used and the rule of law?
Illinois Plays Games with Constitutional Rights
Pass laws that are “very likely unconstitutional” and then force people to sue to get their rights back.
The SAFE-T Act - passed in the last moments of lame duck session, 62 states’ attorneys sued over the law, it went through four significant trailer bills and will finally go into effect on September 18th after the Illinois Supreme Court declared it constitutional 18 months after it originally passed. FIRST in the NATION law again because it got rid of cash bail. The real-life consequences and costs of the bill are unknown at this point.
The Gun Ban Law – another law passed in the dark of the night during a lame duck session. Multiple lawsuits have been filed over it. The IL Supreme Court just ruled it constitutional but the federal lawsuits will go forward and many experts believe it will be ruled unconstitutional in part because of the Bruin decision. It will take years and thousands of dollars for legal gun owners in Illinois to get their rights back.
SB1909 – Another case of overreach by the Democrat ruling class attempting to shut down the free speech of pregnancy centers. The judge called the law “stupid and very likely unconstitutional.” Judge Johnston explained, “It is stupid because its own supporter admitted it was unneeded” as there had been no complaint in Illinois where a pregnant woman was deceived by a pro-life pregnancy center, and “it is likely unconstitutional because it is a blatant example of government taking the side of whose speech is sanctionable and whose speech is immunized.” Thomas More Society has a lawsuit pending; the judge blocked the law from taking effect within 8 days of Pritzker signing it.
Here’s a graphic we put highlighting the idiocy of State Rep Terra Costa Howard, a lawyer and chief sponsor of SB1909. Costa Howard has an aversion to letting the common folk speak, she also filed a bill in 2021 to prevent peaceful protesters from standing within three football fields of a school holding signs protesting mask mandates. The law went nowhere probably because then teacher unions couldn’t picket near a school if on strike were the law to take effect.
