The following bills have been assigned to committees and are on the docket for hearings. This is the only time you can file a witness slip that you support or oppose a bill. If, when you click on the bill, it won’t allow you to file a slip, the time has already passed.

Please take special note of IFI’s position of Proponent or Opponent and file accordingly. Click on the link to be taken to the page where you will need to include the following information.

Do NOT use punctuation marks or the system will not accept your witness slip.

Witness Slip Instructions:

Section I. Enter your name, address, city and zip code. You can leave Firm/Business and Title blank. If it won’t allow you to leave them black, enter self.

Section II. Leave it blank if you are not representing a group, or enter self.

Section III. Check that you are a Proponent or Opponent.

Section IV. Unless you are filing a written statement, select Record of Appearance Only.

Lastly, check that you agree to the terms of agreement.

Click Create (Slip).

BILLS TO SUPPORT

HB 261, Ultrasound Opportunity Act offers a woman seeking an abortion after 8 weeks gestation an opportunity to view an ultrasound of her unborn child.

HB 338, a child born alive as the result of an abortion must be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.

HB 783, repeals tax-payer funding of abortion.

HB 791, bans abortion after 20 weeks except in a medical emergency.

HB 827, bans partial birth abortion.

HB 1893, repeals Reproductive Health Act – most extreme abortion law in the nation.

BILLS TO OPPOSE

HB 79, schools “must include instruction on the medical and legal ramifications of cannabis use.” Because it’s legal for recreational use and has dozens of “medical” uses with intent to include more, instruction could potentially nudge children into experimentation, believing that medicine is good for you.

HB 80, mandates students read nonfiction and fiction books about racism in grades K-12, some of which are filled with hate and are sexually explicit.

HB 135, allows pharmacists to dispense hormonal contraceptives by way of a standing order from the Director of Public Health; mandates health insurance policies to cover the contraceptives.

HB 309, creates the Implicit Bias Training for Health Care Professionals Act. A licensee shall complete implicit bias training regarding “race, ethnicity, gender, identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or other characteristics.”

HB 1736, sets forth comprehensive sex ed requirements for pre-K through 12th grade.

HB 1797, repeals Parental Notice of Abortion Act.

HB 2590, allows people to change their gender or request a non-gendered marriage license.

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*Updated to include Joe Biden’s Friday comparison of Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to Nazi Joseph Goebbels.

Another tempest is brewing in the Land of the Lost, formerly known as the Land of Lincoln. It all began when, in a speech to Moms for America, newly elected U.S. Representative Mary Miller quoted Hitler’s infamous assertion from Mein Kampf about the indoctrination of children. Miller said,

If we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing. He said, “Whoever has the youth has the future.”

The political world came unhinged.

In a D.C. minute, Illinois’ foolish Democrats (I know, I know, redundant) U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky—both on the wrong side of, well, everything—with unsheathed claws, pounced, calling for Miller’s resignation.

I forget, did Duckworth and Schakowsky call for the resignation of colleague Jim Clyburn when he first compared Donald Trump to Hitler in March 2019? Did they call for Clyburn’s resignation in March 2020 when for the second time he compared President Trump to Hitler and then for good measure compared Trump supporters to Germans under Hitler’s reign, saying this:

I used to wonder: How did the people of Germany allow Hitler to exist? But with each passing day, I’m beginning to understand how.

*Have Duckworth and Schakowsky yet called for unifier Joe Biden to resign as president for his despicable comparison on Friday, January 8 of Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels?

Did Duckworth and Schakowsky call for the resignation of Michigan Democrat, U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence when in September 2020, she compared Trump to Hitler and his supporters to supporters of Hitler?

Did Duckworth and Schakowsky call for the resignation of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she called border detention facilities that Obama used to separate children from parents “concentration camps”?

In February 2020, did Duckworth and Schakowsky urge the firing of the history teacher in a government-subsidized school in Maryland “who showed a picture of Trump above pictures of a Nazi swastika and a flag of the Soviet Union” with captions that said ‘wants to round up a group of people and build a giant wall’ and ‘oh, THAT is why it sounds so familiar!’”

Lynn Sweet, longtime writer for the lying leftist rag the Chicago Sun-Times oddly and falsely described Miller’s comment as “praise of Hitler,” when all decent, fair, non-bigots understood Miller’s comment as criticism of Hitler and anyone else who seeks to inculcate children with evil ideas, as all tyrants do.

With his chest puffed up with the air of the self-righteous, busy beaver U.S. Representative from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger—a self-identifying Republican who is always eager to condemn conservatives—jumped aboard the smite Miller bandwagon, saying, “I outright condemn this garbage.” Yeah, that took courage.

Setting aside Godwin’s over-used law, I think it’s time for the faux-outrage from politicians about comparisons to Hitler or Nazism to stop. Both sides use such comparisons. Some comparisons are more apt than others. For example, the comparison of the Democrat view that defective humans are legitimate targets for government-sanctioned extermination to the Nazi view of “life unworthy of life” seems apt.

I’m climbing in bed with a strange fellow for a moment, the very liberal Michael Hiltzik, writer for the LA Times who in a July 2019 commentary challenged the leaders of the U.S. Holocaust Museum’s “unequivocal rejection” of any and all “efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary.”

While I disagree with Hiltzik’s apparent motive—that is, his desire for “progressives” to be free to compare Trump to Hitler—I agree with the view that the use of Holocaust analogies is not intrinsically sinful or off-limits.

Hiltzik explains his dissent from the Holocaust Museum’s absolute prohibition of the use of Holocaust analogies:

[T]he Holocaust Museum’s view of its mission as communicating the “history” of the Holocaust seems crabbed and narrow. Its real mission is to communicate the lesson that, unique as the Holocaust was in scale, the evil that brought it about lurks in the psyche of humans in groups, and may not be visible from the outset.

He goes on to cite Yale Holocaust historian Timothy Snyder who argues,

A monopoly on historical interpretation, claimed by a single institution, is a mark of authoritarianism … one of the dangers of placing a taboo on analogies … ensures that we never learn what we need to know.

Doesn’t that reflect the oft-cited view of philosopher George Santayana who famously warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”? Don’t we teach the evil events in history in part so that we recognize the shadows of those past events in current events? When we recognize those shadows—those contours—are we not to speak of them?

Don’t be naïve or gullible. Politicians don’t really take offense at the use of Nazi analogies. Political animals without principles—particularly animals who don’t believe in objective moral truth or the source of such truth—lack even a grounding for moral outrage. Like everything else within their grasp, their faux-outrage is a political tool for influencing people and winning power. Faux-outrage—fauxrage—emanates from whichever political side is being gored by the analogy.

Don’t fall for it. Don’t be intimidated by it. It’s a tall tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Freshman Rep. Mary Miller, a Christian, mother of seven, grandmother of 17, and farmer, under withering and indefensible attacks from around the country and next to no support from colleagues, has issued a gracious and humble apology for an alleged sin she did not commit:

Earlier this week, I spoke to a group of mothers about the importance of faith and guarding our youth from destructive influences. I sincerely apologize for any harm my words caused and regret using a reference to one of the most evil dictators in history to illustrate the dangers that outside influences can have on our youth. This dark history should never be repeated and parents should be proactive to instill what is good, true, right, and noble into their children’s hearts and minds. While some are trying to intentionally twist my words to mean something antithetical to my beliefs, let me be clear: I’m passionately pro-Israel and I will always be a strong advocate and ally of the Jewish community. I’ve been in discussion with Jewish leaders across the country and am grateful to them for their kindness and forthrightness.

Oh, btw, Hitler—the evil monster—was right on one thing: Whoever has the youth, has the future. As Christians seek to train up their children in the way they should go, they would do well to remember that supremely evil men understand the long-term effects of indoctrinating children. Hitler was not the first, nor will he be the last evil monster to pursue our youth. There are other monsters prowling around, seeking whom they will devour.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/MaryMiller.mp3

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A coalition representing Illinois law enforcement leadership and rank-and-file officers has issued a statement in opposition to House Bill 163 as amended that was unveiled earlier this month, saying:

The so-called “reforms” that are part of House Bill 163 as amended would destroy law enforcement’s ability to keep communities safe. The authors of this legislation are not law enforcement professionals with hundreds of years of combined experience and this bill was drafted without law enforcement input, and because of that the long-term unintended consequences of this legislation would be dire. The Illinois Law Enforcement Coalition recently enumerated its Safe Communities plan, a sensible approach to modernizing Illinois law enforcement, but House Bill 163 as amended would lead to unsafe communities in Illinois. We urge the Illinois General Assembly to avoid making a sudden, rash decision in the Lame Duck Session and instead work carefully with all stakeholders to truly examine what needs to be done regarding law enforcement in Illinois.

The Illinois Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) State Lodge, FOP Labor Council, FOP Chicago Lodge 7, Illinois Sheriffs’ Association and the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police have formed the Illinois Law Enforcement Coalition and have been working on these strategies since summer to improve community safety and enhance the trust between community members and law enforcement.

In addition to that, Illinois State Representative Darren Bailey (R-Louisville) published a video this morning detailing how this 611-page bill would “cripple law enforcement in Illinois.”

The bill could be called anytime between tomorrow, January 8th and Thursday, January 14^th while they are in the lame duck veto session.

According to State Representative Bailey and the Illinois Sheriffs and Police Chiefs Associations, Amendment 2 of HB 163:

• Makes police officers civilly liable for anything at anytime (they currently are protected from personal civil liability).

• Removes law enforcement officer’s rights to collective bargaining.

• Allows unrestricted and ungoverned disciplinary policies of law enforcement officers.

• Prohibits departments from purchasing reduced-priced militaristic equipment from federal surplus, used to protect officers in emergency situations.

• Allows for officers to be disciplined or fired based on anonymous and unsubstantiated complaints with no sworn affidavits and these complaints could be kept forever in their files.

• Increases initial and ongoing education and training requirements, with no money to pay for the costs and no assurances the courses will be offered.

• Mandates body cams with no money to cover the costs and punishes non-compliance.

• Defunds any department that does not comply 100% with these requirements.

• Removes suspension of a driver’s license for ongoing traffic violations.

• Enacts multiple benefits for felons including access to victim’s compensation.

• Prohibits use of force and makes officers criminally liable for using any type of force.

• Removes prohibitions against obstructing police officers.

• Eliminates felony murder.

• Eliminates cash bail, allowing criminal suspects back on the streets immediately.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your State Senator and State Representative to ask them to reject this foolish legislation which would negatively affect our families, our communities and especially the heroes that work tirelessly in law enforcement.

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Many government officials and progressives in Illinois like to tout the state as being a leader in championing women’s rights. In April 2020, a report in the Chicago Tribune showed a shocking backlog of rape kits waiting to be tested by the Illinois State Police (ISP). Women across the state have suffered for years waiting for the DNA of their attackers to be tested in hopes of having their cases solved and their violators brought to justice. Since that report brought the problem to the public’s attention, the ISP has made progress, but there are many kits still to be tested with more rape crimes adding to that number.

Applying ISP data from the end of March, Tribune reported 7,009 kits were waiting in line to be tested, with a processing time of 247 days. The wait time had grown from 194 days in February due to reduced staffing to meet social-distancing guidelines caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

How did we get here?

The story begins in 2002, when the backlog was at close to 3,000 kits. The General Assembly tasked the Illinois State Police with the distribution, collection, analysis, and maintenance of rape kits through the passage of the Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Program (SB 3095). It wasn’t until 2003 that lawmakers added the cost of the program into the ISP’s budget. 

In 2010, the Assembly enacted SB 3296, a rape kit reform bill, requiring law enforcement agencies to submit any sexual assault evidence it receives within 10 business days of receipt to the Department of State Police. The bill further stated the evidence should be analyzed within six months “after receipt of all necessary evidence and standards by the State Police Laboratory or other designated laboratory if sufficient staffing and resources are available.” It also included a one-time statewide performance audit.

The Accountability Project performed a voluntary audit of the Champaign, Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana police departments in 2015, which failed to receive a response from the Chicago Police Department, and inadequate submission rates from the other cities. In 2016, The Chicago Sun-Times reported a backlog of 2,179 of kits. In response, the General Assembly enacted another law, SB 2221, that would require annual audits of rape kit submissions in an effort to increase accountability. That same year, survivors were given access to the status of their rape kits through SB3096.

Subsequent laws were passed in 2017, 2018, and 2019 to provide greater rights to survivors of sexual assault including providing them with advocates, counseling options, and increasing the number of medical professionals trained to perform patient exams. These included the assignment of the ISP with creating and maintaining a statewide sexual assault evidence kit tracking system accessible to survivors. Legally, the system was to be in place by August 16, 2020, but as with many things, the pandemic happened.

For a complete list of the bills, visit the End The Backlog website.

Where things stand now

In late September, the ISP announced its new online database of sexual abuse survivors, Checkpoint. The database allows sexual assault survivors to track their case evidence. There is, however, a hitch: the database starts with cases from August 14 of this year. No cases prior to that date are included in the database. In addition, 14% of the state’s hospitals have yet to sign on to using the new system.

The April article in the Chicago Tribune did much to raise public consciousness and pressure the ISP, as did the looming August legal deadline. In a September 2, 2020 update, the Tribune reported the ISP had reduced the backlog by 31% to 5,811 by July 31. The average turnaround time had gone down from 247 days in March to 210 in August. The article attributed the reduction to “a new computer system, using robots to extract DNA and outsourcing cases to be processed elsewhere.”

While this all sounds like good news, the Chicago Justice Project (CJP) says not so fast. On November 16, it released a report stating the number of backlogged cases has actually increased by 46% at the Chicago Forensic Laboratory testing site.

Among the reasons for its findings, the CJP report cites definitions and interpretations: “The ISP now defines backlog as any unfinished assignment (i.e., work requested on a case) in a section, regardless of when it was submitted. In previous years, the backlog was defined as unfinished cases (in-progress or un-started) in the section for more than 30 days.” Additionally, discrepancies in testing DNA biology and forensic biology caused further confusion. The report issued suggestions to the Chicago lab and ISP for cutting the backlog and improving transparency.

Last year, Governor J.B. Pritzker appointed a Forensic Science Task Force, which issued a report in July. The task force suggested the appointment of a permanent commission and more funding, along with further training, better procurement, and increased communication.

For nearly 20 years, elected officials and other government leaders have worked to resolve this issue of justice. Instead, while trying to correct and improve previous laws, they seem only to have created a more complicated morass of laws. Politicians’ endless law-making has created what must feel to survivors like an unending circle that needs to be broken.

While society has grown more understanding and aware, and the options and treatment for survivors have greatly increased, the need to end the backlog and bring justice to survivors continues. It is hoped that our leaders would quit making laws and announcing edicts but would instead allocate resources that would enable personnel to move quickly to bring justice for survivors.

Conservative parents with kids in Illinois public schools, WAKE UP! Leftists on the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and in Springfield aren’t anywhere near done with their indoctrination mandates. A new amendment to Illinois State Board of Education teacher standards has been proposed by an ISBE committee to infuse the assumptions of Critical Race Theory, identity politics, BLM, and the 1619 Project into 1.  all teacher-training programs/education majors, 2. all Professional Education Licensing (PEL), and 3. all public school classrooms. The proposed standards are called “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards”–translated: Leftist Responsive Indoctrinating Diktats.

In an excruciatingly detailed 2,400- word document, leftists laid bare the comprehensive nature of the indoctrination they seek to mandate. These “standards” will apply to all teachers, administrators, school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers, school nurses, and speech language pathologists.

Not surprisingly, the ten-member steering team of the Diverse and Learner Ready Committee that concocted the new indoctrination standards has three lawmakers—all Democrats (Fred Crespo, Mary Edly-Allen, and Maurice West).

Knowledge of objective facts and the development of the capacity to think logically through critical examination of diverse ideas are relegated to the back of the “education” bus in favor of promoting propaganda about identity, “systems of oppression,” “sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege,” and “Eurocentrism.”

I will attempt to make clear the loathsome outlines and dangerous implications of this proposal while sparing readers many of the excruciating details.

Teachers are expected to accept as objective truth and implement the following:

1.) Understand and value the notion that … there is not one “correct” way of doing or understanding something.

2.) Affirm students’ “backgrounds and identities.”

3.) Assess how their own biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own racist, sexist, homophobic, Eurocentric behavior or unearned privilege.

4.) Be aware of the effects of power and privilege and the need for social advocacy and social action to better empower diverse students and communities.

5.) Align expectations … used in the classroom with the values and cultural norms of students’ families.

6.) Encourage and affirm the personal experiences … students share in the classroom.

7.) Consistently solicit students’ input on the curriculum.

8.) Co-create, with students, the collective expectations and agreements regarding the physical space and social-emotional culture of the classroom.

9.) Create a risk-taking space that promotes student activism and advocacy.

10.) Invite family and community members to teach about topics that are culturally specific and aligned to the classroom curriculum or content area.

11.) Intentionally embrace student identities and prioritize representation in the curriculum.

12.) “Curate the curriculum.”

13.) Employ authentic and modern technology usage inspiring digital literacy through an equity lens.

14.) Ensure assessments reflect the enriched curriculum that has embedded student identities.

15.) Embrace and encourage progressive viewpoints and perspectives … toward traditionally marginalized populations.

16.) Implement and integrate the wide spectrum and fluidity of identities in the curriculum.

17.) Ensure text selections reflect students’ classroom, community, and family culture.

18.) Ensure teacher and students co-create content to include a counternarrative to dominant culture.

19.) Use a resource tool to assess the curriculum and assessments for biases.

20.) Promote robust discussion with the intent of raising consciousness that reflects modern society and the ways in which cultures and communities intersect.

21.) Consider a broader modality of student assessments, such as … “community assessments, social justice work, action research projects, and recognition beyond academia.”

So many issues raised by this ethically repellent, logically contradictory bill:

• Should lawmakers, the ISBE, or departments of education that train teachers require school professionals to value the dubious claim that “there is no correct way of understanding or doing something”? If so, does that claim apply to the claim itself? Perhaps the claim that there is no correct way of understanding or doing something applies to the entire amendment, in which case it must, by its own logic, be rejected.

• Is it the proper role of lawmakers, the ISBE, or departments of education to require school educators to affirm all “identities”? Would those identities include trans-racialists like Rachel Dolezal? Trans-ethnicists? Trans-speciesists? Minor-Attracted Persons? Polyamorists? Zoophiles? Infantilists? Trans-ableists who identify as amputees or paraplegics? Who gets to decide which “identities” educators must embrace and affirm? I guess if there’s no correct way of doing or understanding anything, then “educators” must include all those marginalized groups or any others that may emerge.

• Don’t be fooled by any of the tricksy rhetoric used in this amendment. None of the marginalized groups that will be valued, embraced, affirmed, coddled, and mollycoddled will be conservatives or theologically orthodox Christians. The leftists who wrote this amendment are not interested in the “backgrounds, communities, or cultures” of conservative students or theologically orthodox Catholics or Protestants.

• Does anyone think the “enriched,” “curated” curricula and assessments, or the community speakers and robust consciousness-raising discussions will include conservative beliefs on race, cross-sex identification, and homosexuality?

• The “broader modality of assessments” is a way to incentivize and reward leftist activism. Leftists want, for example, an award for youth activism from BLM or a “trans” cultic organization to count toward a student’s grade.

Lest anyone be unclear of the focus of these new standards, Capitol News cites ISBE spokeswoman Jackie Matthews, who said this about the proposed standards:

Culturally responsive practices are especially important in better supporting Illinois’ LGBTQ+ youth.

As reported by Capitol News,

The state board is scheduled to act on the [proposed standards] at its Dec. 16 meeting. If the board approves them, the new rules would be published a second time, starting another 45-day period during which the proposed standards would be reviewed by the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, or JCAR.

If approved by JCAR, the standards would become part of the standards by which all teachers and administrators are evaluated.

This is how garbage gets into our children’s classrooms: It starts by either leftist professors in education departments, or state boards of education committees, or in state legislatures using their positions to advance their ideological beliefs.

Illinois leftists in control of everything have already mandated that K-12 public schools teach positively about homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation, and now they’re about to mandate that all college and university teacher training programs and all professional educators affirm leftist beliefs about systemic racism, homosexuality, and “trans”-cultism. If conservative Illinoisans are unwilling or unable to stop this, they better get their kids out of our government indoctrination centers pronto.

Those whose kids are grown or who don’t have kids ought not be complacent, because this indoctrination will use their taxes to infect the hearts and minds of kids who will be their culture-makers in 10-20 years. Those whose children are in private schools ought not be complacent because this amendment will affect teachers in their schools as well.  And home schoolers should care because their taxes are being used to infect the hearts and minds of kids who will be their culture-makers in 10-20 years—culture-makers who will one day try to ban homeschooling. Leftists are nothing if not all-inclusive totalitarians.

Leftist lawmakers in Illinois, who with their supermajorities in both the state Illinois House and Illinois Senate own our public schools, are hell-bent on supplanting education with indoctrination. The concern of leftist lawmakers and leftist activists operating in our public schools is to indoctrinate Illinois school children with leftist dogma on race, sexuality, and American history–dogma that will undermine faith and foment yet more division. They want to make it impossible for conservative parents to shape their own children’s views on these fundamental issues. Leftists achieve that goal through legislation, ISBE guidelines, professional development, curricula, and fervent opposition to school choice.

Teachers, leave those kids alone.

Take ACTION: It is vital that the members of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) hear from all Illinois taxpayers. Please click HERE to send a message to this committee urging them to vote against any proposal that would mandate left-leaning standards for educators in Illinois public schools.

The Democratic Co-Chairman is Illinois Senator Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago). His office number is (773) 445-8128.

The Republican Co-Chairman is Keith Wheeler (R-North Aurora). His office number is (630) 345-3464.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Indoctrination-Efforts-Accelerate.mp3

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Nearly a month after calling Christians to the nation’s capital for a prayer march, Franklin Graham is calling on them again, this time to join him for a day of prayer and fasting. Graham posted to his Facebook page October 20th,

“I urge you to join me for a day of prayer and fasting for our nation on this Sunday, October 25. The upcoming election is the most important in our lifetime—with two diametrically different directions for this country on the ballot. Our only hope is in God, and we need to call out to Him for His help and intervention. Will you join me—and will you share this with others?”

A similar message went out on his Twitter page.

The BillyGraham.org website shared a further appeal.

“Today, our nation is at a critical juncture. We need to call out to God for His help, His intervention, and His mercy. It is only by His hand that America will survive and be able to thrive again.”

Graham described how King Jehoshaphat, when the very survival of his nation was at stake, called on his people to fast. When the people turned to God, He delivered them. The story is captured in 2 Chronicles 20:3-4, “And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So, Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord; and from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.”

According to Graham, as much is at stake now as it was then. The decision is between “two vastly different directions for the future of this country. This not only affects us, but our children and our grandchildren.”

Pastor Myles Holmes of REVIVE Church in Collinsville agrees with Graham’s call to prayer and fasting, saying, “the most earth-shaking, culture-shaping interventions of God’s Holy Spirit changing our world have always been in response to the fervent, faith-filled fasting & prayer of God’s people. There is simply no other pathway to repentance, revival and restoration.”

Church of Christian Liberty Pastor Calvin Lindstrom wisely points out, “We trust not in our own prayers, but if we are not praying, then are we really trusting in the Lord? We must pray not because of who we are, but because we serve a faithful, sovereign God who does hear the prayers and cries of His people.”

Rev. Richard Valkanet, senior pastor of Living Waters Church in Grayslake reminds us that, “in times of great stress, people of God have always turned to the Lord with “fasting & prayer.” George Washington proclaimed a Day of Prayer in 1789.  Lincoln put forth a proclamation for a Day of Fasting and Prayer in March, 1863. If there ever was a day as the one we are in, it would be most appropriate for all true believers to unite, petitioning God’s divine intervention as we repent.”

Striking a similar chord in the October issue of Decision Magazine, Rev. Graham wrote,

“If we truly want the blessings of the Lord on our country, then we must come humbly before Him, seek His face in prayer and fasting and repentance, and ask if He might by His grace and mercy bring healing to our troubled nation.”

His “To the Point” column message paraphrased 2 Chronicles 7:14 and echoes his October 20th call. Decision is a Billy Graham Evangelistic Association publication, of which Graham serves as editor-in-chief.

The son of the late evangelist Billy Graham and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse Ministries was joined by thousands on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for the September 26th National Prayer March. Participants in the non-political event asked God to save the country from its current situation and petitioned Him for peace. Other prayer topics included the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects, ongoing nationwide protests and rioting, and upcoming national elections.

Take ACTION: Join the IFI board of directors and staff as we intentionally fast and pray for our state and nation this Sunday. Please pray for God’s mercy on this state and on our nation. Pray for the election of God-fearing candidates to every level of government. Pray for wisdom for voters and a safe and fair election.

HELP: Our get-out-the-vote campaign is up and running. 

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As Election Day November 3 nears tensions in the country continue to run high. The candidates, parties, and voters are expressing worry over mail-in balloting which is being promoted over in-person voting due to the recent pandemic. In the midst of this unease, the Illinois Conservative Union (ICU), along with Judicial Watch, have filed suit against the Illinois State Board of Elections (SBE).

The suit, filed September 21, stems from a request for a list of voter data sent by the ICU to the Illinois State Board of Elections in August 2019, which was denied. According to Judicial Watch, the request sought “information about the maintenance of voter rolls, including the most recent voter registration list for Illinois.” The complaint filed in filed in court states the request noted the records “would be used solely for purposes intended by federal law, namely, to ensure the accuracy and currency of the official list of eligible voters.”

The Election Board denied the request based on the claim that only governmental bodies and political committees were allowed to view such records. A few members of the Illinois Conservative Union were eventually allowed to visit the Board of Elections office in Springfield to review Illinois’ millions of voter records. However, they could only do so “one at a time on a computer terminal, with no ability to sort or organize records,” said Judicial Watch.

In November 2019, the ICU sent the Board of Elections a notice of violation and did not receive a response. As a result, the Illinois Conservative Union determined the Illinois State Board of Elections and its director had violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 by not allowing it access to public voter registration records.

A media release from the Illinois Conservative Union stated, “The SBE refusal to provide voter data as requested is contrary to multiple court decisions around the country ruling that citizen rights to voter data under the NVRA cannot be infringed by state law.”

The attorney handling the case is David Shestokas, who is also an advisor to the Heartland Institute. “ICU’s original request, followed by the notice of violation to Executive Director Steve Sandvoss and the Board of Elections, advised SBE of the federal court orders ruling that the NVRA supersedes state law,” he noted. “The Board’s obligations are clear. Failing to comply results in a waste of taxpayer resources and has delayed ICU’s work on behalf of Illinois voters.”

Its partner in the suit, Judicial Watch, is a Washington D.C. based conservative action group that files Freedom of Information requests on government officials and agencies to investigate alleged misconduct. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois (Illinois Conservative Union et al v. Illinois et al. No. 1:20-cv-05542).

According to Judicial Watch, its research has discovered 14 out of 102 counties (14% of all counties) in Illinois “have more registered voters than citizens over 18, while the state as a whole has 660,000 inactive registrants.”

“This lawsuit aims to open up Illinois voting records so private groups can tell whether they are dirty,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Illinois voters and citizens have a right to review election rolls under federal law and Illinois’ refusal to make them available suggests the state knows the rolls are a mess and won’t stand the light of the day.”

Carol Davis is Chair of the Illinois Conservative Union. “When crafting the NVRA, the intent of Congress was to enable the public to monitor the accuracy of our nation’s voter rolls,” she said. “By denying citizens access to the rolls, state election authorities are thwarting the intent of this legislation, specifically Section 8. Illinois has long been the target of jokes about our elections, such as ‘dead people voting’. Now is the time to verify the accuracy of Illinois voter rolls and put an end to our state’s embarrassing reputation regarding the lack of election integrity.”

Judicial Watch isn’t the only organization that has found irregularities in the state’s voter rolls.

In January 2020, WGN Chicago reported a “programming error in a signature pad at driver services facilities led to hundreds of non-U.S. citizens accidentally being registered as voters.” Once the problem was discovered it was fixed, and of the 574 individuals who were registered to vote, only 16 did.

Before you read this, you might want to have a fire extinguisher at the ready, because this news just may light your hair on fire.

State Representative La Shawn K. Ford (D-Chicago) held a press conference on Sunday in which he called for all Illinois schools to cease teaching history because he’s “Concerned that current school history teaching leads to white privilege and a racist society.”

In a press release titled a “Call for the Abolishment of History Classes in Illinois Schools,” Ford proclaimed from his high horse,

When it comes to teaching history in Illinois, we need to end the miseducation of Illinoisans. I’m calling on the Illinois State Board of Education and local school districts to take immediate action by removing current history books and curriculum practices that unfairly communicate our history. Until a suitable alternative is developed, we should instead devote greater attention toward civics and ensuring students understand our democratic processes and how they can be involved. 

Has Ford created and made public the criteria that would be used to evaluate the fairness of “history books and curriculum practices,” or does he just presume that all current history books and curriculum practices communicate history “unfairly”?

The press release announced that speakers would discuss “how current history teaching practices overlook the contributions by Women and members of the Black, Jewish, LGBTQ communities and other groups.” Take note of the implicitly racist bias in Ford’s press release that capitalized “Black” while not capitalizing “white.” Yes, persons of Color can be as racist as Colorless people.

Here’s a translation of Ford’s rhetoric: Ford wants schools to cancel all history classes until all textbooks can be reviewed by Big Brother to determine if they are sufficiently woke (i.e., leftist/revisionist) in their treatment of properly melanated persons, women (i.e., persons with DNA-determined vaginas), homosexuals, and opposite-sex impersonators. In the meantime, Ford proposes teaching “civics,” focusing on presenting BLM and Antifa riots as constitutionally protected intensely peaceful assemblies.

In the early stages of the pandemic, when most Americans were fretting about the Chinese Communist virus, leftists were hatching plans on how to weasel the widely criticized New York Times revisionist 1619 Project into Illinois public schools.

To achieve that goal, Ford first proposed the silly partisan bill HB 4954 to add yet more “commemorative holidays” to the school calendar and mandate the teaching of the Civil Rights Movement, which is already taught in schools everywhere.

Then just two weeks later, Ford, who in 2012 was charged “with eight counts of bank fraud and nine counts of submitting false information to the bank in a 17-count indictment,” filed an even more partisan and dangerous amendment that would require the following:

“The study of the pre-enslavement history of Black people from 3,000 BCE to AD 1619, including instruction about ancient civilizations, kingdoms, kings, queens, and warriors; their contributions to medicine, literature, technology, architecture, and economics; and their achievements,” and “The study of the reasons why Black people came to be enslaved.”

The amendment was the brainchild of community activist Meleika Gardner who also wrote the amendment.

According to Scene Chicago, Gardner attributes the murders of “her father, a stepfather, her nephew, and several friends to gun violence due to systemic racism,” which she seeks to eradicate through school indoctrination. I’m unable to find, however, any identification by Gardner of the systemically racist acts that allegedly killed her loved ones or explaining exactly how these racist acts killed them. It seems, for example, that her nephew, Xavier Joy, was the tragic victim of robbery in Woodlawn, a neighborhood on the South Side that is 98 percent black. Maybe some intrepid reporter will ask Gardner for some specific details on how systemic racism killed her friends and relatives.

Ford and Gardner were joined at the press conference by their collaborator, Evanston alderman Robin Rue Simmons, who tied the amendment that would mandate yet more leftist propaganda in government schools to both slave reparations and the riots destroying America:

Simmons, who has spearheaded the push for reparations in Evanston, called education “a key piece of what repair looks like.” Acknowledging the recent Black Lives Matter protests and nationwide “awakening” to the oppression black people face, she said “now is the time” to fight for this bill.

The collaborators know that it would be infinitely easier to get brown, yellow, red, and white Americans who have never owned slaves to support paying reparations to blacks who never were slaves if these Americans have been propagandized.

Ford, a former history teacher in Chicago Public Schools, made this jaw-dropping statement to Fox News:

We know that the history books that we have were written years ago, decades ago, centuries ago by pretty much one group of people, and that’s white men.

Does Ford think teachers are today using textbooks written centuries ago? Is he so racist that he thinks white people can’t write about historical events involving black people? Does he believe black people are similarly incapable of writing about historical events involving white people? I guess we should be glad Ford is no longer in the classroom.

Ford’s policies are likely shaped more by his desire for political power in a leftist city than by principle. When running for mayor in 2019, Ford was asked by the homosexual newspaper Windy City Times if he has any “experience working in LGBTQ-related issues.” Ford, who pretends to be Catholic while supporting abortion and issues related to homosexuality, acknowledged that his lesbian sister is a “strong adviser on issues.”

If this Trojan horse filled with 1619 Project swamp gas looks like it’s going to pass in the Springfield swamp, some good conservatives should file an amendment that would require a complete history of slavery throughout the world to be taught and would require that all resources used in history classes be ideologically balanced between conservative and leftist. So, if resources by 1619 Project author Nikole Hannah-Jones are used, then equal time must be spent studying resources by Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and John McWhorter.

Let’s make sure Illinois children know that between 1501-1866, more enslaved Africans went to Brazil/Portugal (5,848,266), Great Britain (3,259,441), France (1,381,404), Spain/Uruguay (1,061,524), and the Netherlands (554,336) than the United States (305,326), and that “Less than one-quarter of white Southerners held slaves,” and that it is estimated that “3,776 free Negroes” owned slaves.

And let’s make sure they study the work of prolific black scholar Thomas Sowell who writes that,

Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18^th century. People of every race and color were enslaved—and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed. Everyone hated the idea of being a slave but few had any qualms about enslaving others.

Sowell further points out the hypocrisy of leftists on slavery:

The treatment of white galley slaves was even worse than the treatment of black slaves picking cotton. But there are no movies or television dramas about it comparable to Roots, and our schools and colleges don’t pound it into the heads of students.

Sowell offers a corrective to the myopic perspective offered by America-hating leftists—a corrective of which students should be made aware:

The inhumanity of human beings toward other human beings is not a new story, much less a local story. There is no need to hide it, because there are lessons we can learn from it. But there is also no need to distort it, so that sins of the whole human species around the world are presented as special defects of “our society” or the sins of a particular race.

If American society and Western civilization are different from other societies and civilization, it is that they eventually turned against slavery, and stamped it out, at a time when non-Western societies around the world were still maintaining slavery and resisting Western pressures to end slavery, including in some cases armed resistance. Only the fact that the West had more firepower than others put an end to slavery in many non-Western societies during the age of Western imperialism. …

Every American should be troubled by the goals of leftist demagogues and censors in government schools. Sowell makes clear that they are not interested in ascertaining truth but, rather, they seek to distort children’s understanding of America for power and money:

It is not just the history of slavery that gets distorted beyond recognition by the selective filtering of facts. Those who go back to mine history in order to find everything they can to undermine American society or Western civilization, have very little interest in the Bataan death march, the atrocities of the Ottoman Empire or similar atrocities in other times and places.

Those who mine history for sins are not searching for truth but for opportunities to denigrate their own society, or for grievances that can be cashed in today, at the expense of people who were not even born when the sins of the past were committed.

Why did Ford collude with other leftists to concoct this amendment? Leftists understand that it’s easier to forge 15-year-olds into good leftist foot soldiers than it is to forge 25-year-olds and easier still to squeeze malleable 5-year-olds into desired shapes by plunking them into government Play-Doh molds. Leftists want to prevent freethinkers who may later become incorrigibly resistant to leftist dogma and then have to be cancelled.

Conservatives best get their kids out of government indoctrination centers and re-education camps pronto. Leftists are not winning the culture war by the persuasive force and rationality of their ideas but by indoctrination and intimidation.

The Orwellian anti-freedom sharks smell and taste the blood of conservatives in the water. Every day that conservatives choose fear over courage, capitulation over resistance, and silence over bold dissent, they sacrifice the future freedom of their children for one more hour of uneasy peace.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your state lawmakers and urge them to vote no on both HB 4954 and Rep. La Shawn Ford’s amendment, which would politicize the teaching of history in Illinois schools and foment more division.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Leftist-Lawmakers-and-Activists-Call-for-the-Cancellation-of-All-History-Classes_audio.mp3

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On July 29th, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced new COVID-19 restrictions on youth sports statewide for the upcoming school year. Starting August 15, only “low-risk” sports like tennis, baseball, cross country, swimming and golf will be allowed, but “medium” and “high” risk sports, including football, wrestling, soccer and competitive cheering will not be allowed. The governor’s office released a list of sports ranked in terms of their risk for COVID-19 transmittal.

During his coronavirus update last Wednesday, Gov. Pritzker explained,

This isn’t news that anyone wants to hear. But this virus remains dangerous to kids and parents and grandparents, teachers and coaches and for right now. This is the best thing that we can do for the health and safety of our families under the current circumstances, based upon their inherent risk level and based upon minimal contact between athletes and their proximity during play.

This announcement comes two weeks after the CDC’s Dr. Robert Redfield pointed out an alarming trend: suicides and drug overdoses have surpassed the death rate for COVID-19 among high school students. Regarding the never ending COVID-19 lock-down, he said,

[T]here has been another cost that we’ve seen, particularly in high schools. We’re seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID. We’re seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose … than we are seeing the deaths from COVID. So … for the overall social being of individuals … let’s all work together and find out how we can find common ground to get these schools open in a way that people are comfortable and they’re safe.

Dr. Redfield is right to be concerned about the overall social well-being of students, many of whom need a healthy outlet for both their physical and mental health. Shutting down certain youth recreational sports is an overreaction, especially when all the experts say that young people are less likely to contract the virus, are less likely to spread it to others, and are less likely to have severe symptoms if they do contract COVID-19.

These restrictions include school-based sports, private leagues and clubs, recreational leagues, and park district sports programs. Interestingly, this guidance does not pertain to professional sports leagues or collegiate sports, even though the data indicates that individuals over 20 years of age are twice as likely to be susceptible to a COVID-19 infection. Once again, Gov. Pritzker’s excessive restrictions are inconsistently applied.

In June, the BBC reported that a large group of child psychologists and specialists in the United Kingdom published an open letter to their education secretary urging him to reconsider the situation “and to release children and young people from lockdown.” Their appeal continued:

Allow them to play together and continue their education by returning to preschool, school, college and university, and enjoy extra-curricular activities including sport and music as normally, and as soon, as possible.

Evidently, they understand that the political “cure” may prove to be worse than the COVID-19 curse–disproportionally affecting our state’s youth.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Gov. Pritzker to encourage him to consider the mental health aspects of his COVID-19 restrictions. Urge him to let youth sports go forward and to let parents/coaches decide what protective measures they should take.

Please consider supporting the work and ministry of Illinois Family Institute.

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Written by Austin Scott Davies

Late last week, Illinois Circuit Court Judge Michael McHaney of Clay County ruled in a lawsuit that “all citizens of Illinois” are free from Governor J.B. Pritzker‘s tyrannical orders. This comes after arguably unethical tactics by the Illinois Attorney General to delay the case by trying to remove it to federal court, and the United States Department of Justice filing a Statement of Interest in the case in support of the lawsuit.

State Representative Darren Bailey (R-Louisville) prevailed in his Motion for Summary Judgment on Counts II and III of his lawsuit against Governor Pritzker on April 23, 2020. The judge granted the declaratory relief requested in those counts and ordered a final judgment on the merits against Pritzker.

The judge ruled that by law Gov. Pritzker’s emergency powers lapsed 30 days after he declared COVID-19 a disaster and that all of his orders after April 8, 2020 that relate to the COVID-19 “disaster” are void ab initio. That’s Latin for void when they were created. Pritzker had no authority to issue orders after April 8, and legally, all orders issued after that date never existed. The Emergency Management Agency Act, which Gov. Pritzker claimed gave him authority to issue perpetual decrees shuttering businesses and churches and authority to suspend countless civil liberties, states clearly that a governor only has certain emergency powers that can be exercised for no more than 30 days following the declaration of a disaster.

The court went on to rule that there is no authority in the Constitution for Pritzker to have ever ordered the restriction of people’s movement or to have ever ordered the forcible closure of any business.

The judge made clear that in Illinois only the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and local health departments have the authority to restrict movement or close a business. To restrict movement or close a business, IDPH and local health departments must act within the constraints of existing law to take each individual person or business to court and overcome an incredibly high burden of proof. If the department is merely trying to prevent the spread of a virus or isolate a person that’s not already sick, that burden of proof is nearly insurmountable.

Specifically, Section 2 of the IDPH Act (20 ILCS 2305) allows the IDPH and local health authorities to order quarantine and isolation and to close places to prevent the probable spread of a dangerous or infectious disease. However, these agencies cannot make such orders without a prior court order, or consent by the person or persons effected.

The only exception to this is if, in the “reasonable judgment of the agency” issuing the order, “immediate action is required to protect the public from a dangerously contagious or infectious disease.” In that event, they can make such orders on a temporary basis, lasting no longer than 48 hours.

If a department of health issues such an order, they are still required to either obtain your consent or a court order within 48 hours of doing so, unless the courts are unavailable or circumstances make it impossible to obtain a court order. Then, the orders can only stay in place until the agency can obtain the court order through reasonable means.

The courts, however, are not closed, and some county courts have even made new local rules making it clear that they are open for these types of cases. To obtain an order to quarantine, isolate, or close a place or business, the health department must prove to a court “by clear and convincing evidence . . . that the public’s health and welfare are significantly endangered by a person or group of persons that has, that is suspected of having, that has been exposed to, or that is reasonably believed to have been exposed to a dangerously contagious or infectious disease including non-compliant tuberculosis patients or by a place where there is a significant amount of activity likely to spread a dangerously contagious or infectious disease. The Department must also prove that all other reasonable means of correcting the problem have been exhausted and no less restrictive alternative exists.”

At such hearing, you have a right to be represented by an attorney of your choosing, or if you are “indigent,” the court will appoint counsel to represent you. The burden is on the government to prove why you should close, isolate, or be quarantined. You do not have to prove why you should keep your business open or move about without restrictions.

At the behest of Gov. Pritzker and prior to this ruling, the IDPH has come out with “guidelines” that are phrased as orders that require certain measures of quarantine, partial business closure, and isolation such as “social” physical distancing. None of these “guidelines” or orders are enforceable unless you consent to them, or a health department complies with the due process protections described above and obtains a court order.

Shortly after this ruling, Gov. Pritzker and mainstream “news” media led a disinformation campaign to deceive Illinoisans by suggesting that “Phase 4” is still in full effect because Gov. Pritzker prevailed in other lawsuits regarding these onerous orders. While it is true that some courts have ruled against other plaintiffs that have filed lawsuits against Gov. Pritzker that are related to his orders, none have made any ruling inconsistent with the ruling in State Rep. Darren Bailey’s lawsuit. The other lawsuits referenced by Pritzker and his cohorts made different legal claims against Pritzker, were not representative actions, and in no way limit or constrain Judge McHaney’s ruling that all citizens of Illinois are free from Pritzker’s unlawful orders. This ruling applies to the entire state of Illinois and not just Clay County in the Circuit Court where it was made.

What is really telling is that only Pritzker and his cohorts are engaging in the campaign of disinformation, continuing to try to compel compliance to his void orders by intimidation. The Illinois Attorney General’s Office will not comment or respond to questions regarding the ruling.

Since the relief granted was declaratory relief, or relief which declares the parties rights under law—the parties here being Gov. Pritzker and all citizens of Illinois—the remedy of contempt of court is not available to punish Gov. Pritzker for disregarding this ruling. Unlike an injunction, a declaratory judgment does not order a party to do something or refrain from doing something. The judgment in this case is, however, valuable, in that not only does it invalidate Gov. Pritzker’s orders, but it can also be used by any citizen of Illinois to sue Pritzker and other public officials that have unlawfully deprived them of their civil rights, and any that would continue to unlawfully deprive them of their civil rights in clear violation of this judgment and under color of law.

Pritzker has even reportedly claimed that the ruling was not a final judgment on the merits, yet the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, which represents Gov. Pritzker, stated their intent to file an appeal seeking to overturn the judgment. If the ruling was not a final judgment on the merits, it could not be appealed. Unless this judgment is appealed and overturned by an appellate court, any order made by Pritzker that purported to restrict people’s movement, forcibly close any business, and any order related to COVID-19 that he made after April 8, has indeed been declared void and no longer exists anywhere in the State of Illinois.

More:

Click HERE to listen to a 10 minute interview of attorney Thomas DeVore by WMAY radio host Greg Bishop for a clarification on what the Judge Michael McHaney means.

Austin Scott Davies is an attorney and founder of Midwest Legal Care , former prosecutor, and an active member of the Winnebago County Republican Party. He is also a board member for Concerned Citizens for America, a local chapter of Illinois Family Institute.

The information contained in this article is not legal advice and is for general information purposes only. Do not act or refrain from acting on the basis of this information. Readers should contact an attorney to obtain advice with respect to any legal matter.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

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Registering to vote is the first step to engage in civic life
and become a good steward of your
God-given responsibility of self-government.

The process for registering is easy and convenient, but unfortunately, millions of Americans choose not to take the time. Millions of Americans are not registered to vote. Add to that the fact that Barna Research reports that in the last two presidential elections, voter-turnout among self-professing Christians was only 59 percent in 2012 and 61 percent in 2016.

We must do better in 2020!

Registering Voters is Easy!

In addition to those young people who will turn 18 years old by the November 3rd General Election day, think about how many people you know who have moved or have gotten married and have changed their name. Consider engaging citizens who have not voted in the past to become actively involved in impacting our nation’s future!

IFI has created a free voter registration packet containing all of the information you need to conduct a drive. Please consider holding a voter registration drive at your church, local school or library.

Register Online

It has never been easier to register to vote.  Simply click this link to visit the Illinois State Board of Election’s “Online Voter Application.”  It is safe, secure and quick.

Print and Mail-In Form

1. Click HERE to download and print out the Illinois Voter Registration Application. Make as many copies as you think you will need during your registration drive.

2. Mail the completed application(s) to your local election authority. Click HERE to look up the mailing address. If you are unsure of your election authority, please feel free to contact us. Call (708) 781-9328 during normal business hours, or email us anytime and we will be glad to help!

Voter Registration Kit Resources

• Voter Registration Application
• Constitutional Protections for Pastors
• What Churches Can and Cannot Do
• How to Conduct a Voter Registration Drive
• Election Schedule and Registration Deadlines
• List of Illinois Election Authorities

Voter Registration Bulletin Inserts

• • Bulletin Insert #1
  • Bulletin Insert #2
  • Bulletin Insert #3
  • Bulletin Insert #4

Voter Registration FAQ’s

Q. I’ve moved. Do I need to register again?
A. Yes. Follow the process above.

Q. My name has changed. Do I need to register again?
A. Yes. Follow the process above.

Q. I sent in my form 2 weeks ago, but I haven’t heard anything back yet.
A. You should receive confirmation 4-6 weeks after your original submission. If you do not hear from your County Clerk by then, give them a call. Click HERE for a list of County Clerk offices.

Q. I am a pastor or a church leader. Can I encourage the members at my church to register to vote and hold a voters registration drive?
A. Yes. Voter registration drives are not considered political activity. Although certain limitations are imposed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax code and campaign laws, churches and pastors are able to engage in nonpartisan activity, particularly voter registration and voter education. There is no legal restriction whatsoever on the ability of churches to register voters or provide them candidate survey information, like the material provided in the IFI Voter Guide.

We cannot afford to grow weary. This year is shaping up to be one of the most critical elections ever for issues that affect our families.

Plato said, “The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.”

If you would like IFI to mail you our IFI Voter Registration Kit, call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328 or email us HERE.

Please support the work & ministry of IFI!

Written by Roger German

Governor J. B. Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) are not above the Illinois Constitution because of a declared emergency.

The Illinois Constitution grants neither the governor nor the IDPH the authority to suspend the Bill of Rights in the Illinois Constitution. The Illinois Constitution grants neither the governor nor the IDPH emergency powers to deny citizens their constitutionally protected rights. The governor has no lawful authority aside from what is granted by the Illinois State Constitution. Also, the IDPH does not wield more power than what the governor is granted constitutionally. The powers delegated by the Illinois Constitution to the Illinois governor are defined and limited. Nowhere in the Illinois Constitution did “we the people” grant the governor an emergency power that allows him to suspend the Illinois Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

The Illinois General Assembly cannot by way of a state statute lawfully grant the governor additional through an emergency powers act. To do so violates the Illinois State Constitution, and enacting law that runs contrary to the Illinois Constitution makes that law null and void.

If the Illinois General Assembly could grant additional powers to the governor willy-nilly, then what would be the point of a separation of powers, and of checks and balances? If a state legislature could grant power not constitutionally granted to the governor, then what would stop a state legislature from making the governor a monarch?

The governor seems to believe that because he was elected, he has an intrinsic right to do what he wants regardless of what power the Illinois Constitution delegates to him. Only citizens possess intrinsic rights, and those rights are constitutionally protected from government abuse. Governments only have constitutionally granted power and authority, not unalienable rights. There exists no constitutional authority for the governor to unilaterally mandate stay-at-home mandates and closures of so-called non-essential businesses–including churches–because of an alleged emergency.

Some may wonder what the governor’s executive orders permit him to do. The governor may not, by means of executive orders, exercise powers not granted to him by the Illinois State Constitution or by lawful acts of the Illinois General Assembly. The granting of executive order power to the governor is not a blank check giving him power to do whatever he wants. Article V, Section 8 of the Illinois State Constitution states, in part, that the governor shall be responsible for the faithful execution of the laws. By way of an executive order the governor has the obligation to implement the lawful acts of the Illinois General Assembly. The governor may make executive orders to carry out his constitutionally granted powers and duties, and he may address administrative issues within the executive branch by way of executive orders.

In summary:

• The governor has not been granted emergency powers by the supreme state law, the Illinois Constitution.

• The governor and the IDPH have no lawful authority to suspend the Illinois Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

• The Illinois General Assembly has no constitutional authority to grant the governor more power.

• The granting of the executive power by the Illinois Constitution to the governor is not a blank check giving him power to do whatever he wants.

• The governor may not criminalize the use of the people’s constitutionally protected rights listed in the Illinois Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

Let’s hope law enforcement remembers that they swore an oath to uphold the constitution–not to be a personal army for the governor.

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We understand that we are accountable before you and God to honor your trust. 

IFI is supported by voluntary donations from good people like you.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has filed an emergency rule to punish businesses that open to customers in defiance of his illegal lock-down orders. Violators could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor, which is a fine between $75 and $2,500.

Additionally, this emergency rule extends the governor’s emergency authority from 30 days to 150 days.

According to this online report by Amanda Vinicky, because “it’s classified as ’emergency’ in nature, the rule change took effect as soon as it was filed Friday.” State lawmakers sitting on the JCAR Committee will have to vote to reject the governor’s unilateral power grab. Without a tsunami of calls and emails, this order will be rubber stamped, possibly as soon as this Wednesday.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email to the 12 members of the JCAR Committee asking them to reject this confiscation of power.

More ACTION: Please also call the following committee members and leave a similar message:

Background

State Representative John M. Cabello (R-Machesney Park) issued a press release publicly objecting to this rule change:

We have a dictator Governor who is weaponizing our Department of Public Health to treat our citizens like criminals. The pure irony lies in the fact that the Governor is doing this at the same time that he is commuting sentences for murderers and rapists. The greatest danger today from the COVID-19 is the alternative universe that is being created here in Illinois.

People are resisting because they view the Governor’s Restore Illinois plan, and his general approach to the COVID-19 health crisis, as a hodgepodge of arbitrary rules and restrictions placed on citizens and businesses by a hypocritical leader. Recall the news stories about the Governor’s wife traveling to Florida while the rest of us are being told to lockdown. Now we are hearing that the Governor’s family has been up in Wisconsin too. In another case of irony those two states have been easing their restrictions.

I think our Governor needs to look in the mirror when he starts to criticize the people of Illinois for their lack of compliance and confidence in his approach to the COVID-19. Telling a family of four who just drove in the same car to the boat dock that only two of them at a time can be on a boat is not only stupid, it is just one example of things that undermine confidence in the way the entire issue is being handled. Perhaps the Governor should travel to Florida with his family next time and get some advice from their Governor.

It is imperative that Illinois citizens speak up loudly about this new rule that not only punishes working families but grants untenable powers to the governor.

We take very seriously the trust you place in Illinois Family Institute when you send a gift.
We understand that we are accountable before you and God to honor your trust. 

IFI is supported by voluntary donations from good people like you.

Obama judicial appointee Judge John Z. Lee of the Northern District of Illinois ruled against The Beloved Church last week as they filed a federal complaint challenging Governor J.B. Pritzker‘s emergency Executive Orders. The pastor and church, located in Lena, Illinois, are seeking to have their First Amendment rights restored to them in order to host regular services of up to 80 people each week.

Judge Lee’s reasoning in his decision denying the church’s complaint was shocking:

It is difficult to see why the legislature would recognize these long-running problems as disasters, yet divest the Governor of the tools he needs to address them.

Judge Lee continues:

Written by Austin Scott Davies

On March 9, 2020, Governor J.B. Pritzker declared every county in Illinois a disaster area. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act (20 ILCS 3305/7) allows the governor to proclaim a disaster exists by which he can give himself authority under the Act to exercise certain emergency powers.

The most noteworthy of the powers he has exercised is the power to control the movement of persons within a disaster area and the power to control and restrict the use, sale, or distribution of goods and services.

The governor is constrained by the Act to exercise the emergency powers for a period that is not to exceed 30 days following the proclamation of a disaster. Under the Act, the governor’s emergency powers have expired.

The federal and Illinois’ constitutions also limit the governor’s power through their due process and equal protection clauses. The Bill of Rights, found in both constitutions, restrain the government from violating our rights. However, the government is allowed to burden our rights under certain circumstances.

If a fundamental right is burdened by the government, for example the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, or movement, some questions asked by courts to determine whether the government’s act is constitutional are whether the act substantially burdened the fundamental right, whether the act furthered a compelling government interest, and whether the government used the least restrictive means possible to pursue that interest. This analysis is called strict scrutiny.

If a non-fundamental right is burdened, courts use the rational basis analysis. Judicial precedent deems economic and business rights to be included as non-fundamental. In determining whether a government act is constitutional here, courts determine whether an act is rationally related to a legitimate government objective. Both strict scrutiny and rational basis analysis are also used for equal protection analysis, when the government applies laws differently based on classifications it creates.

Both fundamental and non-fundamental rights have been burdened by the governor’s orders, and businesses and activities have been classified as “essential” or “non-essential.” In particular, by Order 2020-10, which chose certain businesses that had to close and certain activities that people were no longer allowed to engage in. This “stay-at-home” order shuttered thousands of businesses and restricted fundamental liberties of people in Illinois.

Is prohibiting church services and gatherings of over a certain number of people but allowing people to buy recreational cannabis and liquor–even if “social-distancing” is practiced during each activity–the least restrictive means to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (also known as the disease “COVID-19”)? Are these classifications rationally related to preventing the spread of the virus? What does shutting down schools have to do with protecting the elderly and immuno-compromised who are most at risk for hospitalization? These questions are beginning to be asked across the nation by litigants, courts, and legislatures. Some doctors believe that isolation and “social distancing” should only be practiced by those most at risk, and that “social-distancing” and isolation will in the long term lead to more death than if we built up herd immunity quicker among the healthy while giving the option to those at risk to choose to social-distance and stay home.

Courts will also be asked to decide whether the government can lawfully arrest or fine people for violating the governor’s orders. In short, no, the government cannot arrest you merely for violating the governor’s orders. Unlike some states, Illinois’ Emergency Management Act does not provide any penalties for violations, so for the executive branch to impose a penalty for a violation would be a violation of procedural due process, which prohibits enforcement of penalties that are vague or, as in this case, non-existent. Even if the governor issued an order specifying a penalty, it would still be unenforceable. In our tripartite, constitutional republic, only the legislature can make law. If the governor purported to create a penalty by order, and that is not present in the statute, that part of his order would be void.

Local municipalities have passed ordinances that provide for penalties if the governor’s order is violated. Some of these ordinances may be lawful while others may not be. For example, Chicago’s Department of Public Health issued an order that requires sick people not to leave their homes except for certain essential activities. The order references Chicago ordinance 2-112-340 for enforcement of its order, which provides that anyone violating an order by the Illinois Department of Public Health or Board of Health can be fined between $100-$500 dollars. The Chicago Department of Public Health gets its authority from the Illinois Administrative Code, which allows for the Illinois Department of Public Health to delegate its authority to to local health authorities. Therefore, the Chicago Department, like the Illinois Department of Public Health, is constrained in its actions by the Illinois Department of Health Act (20 ILCS 2305).

Section 2 of this Act allows the Illinois Department of Public Health, and local health authorities, to order quarantine, isolation, and closure of places to prevent the probable spread of a dangerous or infectious disease. However, these agencies cannot make such orders without a prior court order, or consent by the person or persons effected. The only exception to this is if, in the reasonable judgment of the agency issuing the order, exigent circumstances exist that require immediate action to protect the public, they can make such orders. The agency issuing the order is still required either obtain consent or court order within 48 hours of doing so, unless the courts are unavailable or circumstances make it impossible to obtain a court order. Then, the orders can only stay in place until the agency can obtain the court order through reasonable means.

Illinois’ courts may require video and telephonic hearings at this time, but they are not closed. There have been no reports that the Chicago Department of Health has obtained a court order authorizing the quarantine or isolation of anyone. For this reason, if Chicago law enforcement does issue any fines pursuant to the ordinance, it may be possible to have the fines dismissed. It is also possible that law enforcement would charge you with a Class A misdemeanor for violating an order of a health department agency, found in the act at 20 ILCS 2305/8.1, which may be defended on the same grounds. A Class A misdemeanor carries with it up to 364 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.

Threat of criminal penalty has also been made by the governor. When pressed what punishment people could face for violating his order, Gov. Pritzker stated that the police could get a court order or charge people with reckless conduct. Reckless conduct (720 ILCS 5/12-5) is conduct that is performed recklessly and that endangers the safety of another person and is a Class A misdemeanor. The government would have a hard time proving your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If you are not under court-ordered quarantine, if you go in public while practicing “social-distancing” and wearing a mask, even while sick, your actions may not be reckless or endangering anyone else. If you are not sick, even if you are not practicing “social-distancing” or wearing a mask, it is hard to imagine the government proving that you endangered another person. It would likely have to be proven that the government knew you were positive for the virus before they arrested you for going into public and that you were reckless by not practicing social-distancing or wearing a mask.

Illinoisans may have another right regarding the pandemic. That is the right to just compensation for a government “taking.” The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that the government will not take anyone’s property without just compensation. This Amendment is incorporated to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. The same clause can be found in Section 15 of Article 1 of the Illinois Constitution. U.S. Supreme Court precedent states that one method for the government to take something is to deny it all economically viable use.

Many businesses have been denied all economic viability. Such a large scale taking and compensation is unprecedented, but it does appear that there is a justifiable argument for relief.

The Illinois General Assembly may be back in session sometime next month. Whether they act to check the governor’s power remains to be seen, but it is not likely since both branches are controlled by the same political party. As more Illinoisans struggle under the governor’s orders and local ordinances, more lawsuits will be filed, and the courts may be the only arbiter of the extent of the government’s power during this pandemic.

Austin Scott Davies is an attorney, former prosecutor, and an active member of the Winnebago County Republican Party. He is also a board member for Concerned Citizens for America, a local chapter of Illinois Family Institute.

The information contained in this article is not legal advice and is for general information purposes only. Do not act or refrain from acting on the basis of this information. Readers should contact an attorney to obtain advice with respect to any legal matter.