Prairie State Wire

State Sen. and gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey recently voiced his opinion on a judge's ruling that will end COVID-19 mandates in Illinois schools. 

A Sangamon County judge has issued a temporary restraining order against Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois Department of Public Health and multiple school districts across the state, eliminating the requirement to enforce the mask mandate for students or require staff to be vaccinated or tested, according to WCIA News.

Bailey took to Twitter to voice his opinion on the decision. 

"As your next Governor, I will repeal all of Pritzker’s mandates. You should make these decisions, not government," Bailey wrote in a Feb. 6 Twitter post.

WGLT News reports that Judge Raylene Grischow sided with parents who sued 146 school districts over the state’s mask mandate, plus staff who sued another 21 districts over Pritzker’s vaccine requirement. In those cases, staff who declined to get vaccinated also objected to the alternative regular COVID testing requirement, claiming it was tantamount to a forced medical procedure.

"IDPH passed the buck to schools so as not not trigger the due process protections under [state law]," Grischow wrote, according to WGLT. "IDPH cannot delegate its duties and responsibilities to ISBE and then stand on the sidelines with its hands in the air, saying, 'it wasn’t us. We didn’t exclude kids. We didn’t mandate vaccines. We didn’t implement a mask mandate…the schools did.'"

Pritzker plans to fight this decision and file an appeal.

"The grave consequence of this misguided decision is that schools in these districts no longer have sufficient tools to keep students and staff safe while COVID-19 continues to threaten our communities – and this may force schools to go remote," Pritzker said in a statement, according to WCIA. "This shows yet again that the mask mandate and school exclusion protocols are essential tools to keep schools open and everyone safe."

Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery is advising that school districts continue to follow the safety agreements in union contracts which were renegotiated after Pritzker’s vaccine mandate was announced.