Prairie State Wire

The Illinois Freedom Caucus is pushing back against the Uniform Law Commission which would standardize emergency powers for state executives.

“The Uniform Law Commission wants every governor in America to standardize emergency public health powers with no ability to challenge them in court. We have seen the wreckage of Governor Pritzker's emergency powers here in Illinois, where the tyrant ruled for 3 years under his disaster orders,” the Illinois Freedom Caucus said on Facebook. 

The organization also posted its full statement on Facebook.

“All 11 Freedom Caucuses in our network will fight to ensure this never becomes law in their states,” the Illinois Freedom Caucus added. 

A coalition of state Freedom Caucus members banded together to deliver the message. In addition to Illinois, that group included those from Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming. Read the group’s full statement below. 

“The tyrannical Covid-19 response from most state governments laid bare just how fragile self-government by free people can be when faced with fear, manipulation, and centralized power,” the coalition said. “In our 11 states, Freedom Caucus Members and other liberty-minded representatives have had successes and met resistance in enacting legal and constitutional safeguards against the use and misuse of emergency power by our executive branches. Absolute power when used is not easily given up, but the expectations of our constituents are clear--they will not tolerate forced experimental vaccinations, they will not support shutting down their businesses, schools, and churches, and they will not be forced to abandon sick and dying loved ones. Most of all, they will not trust a sole elected official to make indefinite, unilateral decisions about what constitutes a public health emergency and face no repercussions for their actions. We agree with them.” 

“It is in this context that we now face proposed model legislation from the Uniform Law Commission (ULC), with the intent that it be enacted in all 50 states, that seeks to standardize public health emergency powers for governors by giving them more control, less legislative oversight, and near immunity from judicial scrutiny. Although the ULC is allegedly a non-partisan organization, the well-honed and well-financed liberal dream to do away with federalism is front and center in this proposed legislation.” 

“We are mindful that the Left learned lessons from the Covid-19 response too and they are excited at the prospects of creating more dictatorial states like California and eliminating liberty-minded states like Florida. We are greatly concerned that a loose definition of what constitutes a public health emergency and expanded state powers to act upon it could lead to even greater attacks on our freedoms. Could 'gun crime' be labeled a public health emergency?” 

“Could smoke from wildfires be used to justify the shutdowns of cities and industries? Could North Carolina Governor Rory Cooper's ridiculous 'state of emergency' over school choice enactment be given teeth? Given what we saw during the Covid-19 era, these are fair questions to ask, regardless of what the ULC may claim is its intent. The logical result of this legislation, if enacted, would be to generate uniformity of tyranny across the 50 states.” 

“As legislators, we are appropriately suspicious of further concentration of power in the executive branch. We are specifically concerned about the section of the UCL legislation that deliberately excludes legislators from a role in ending an emergency declaration. Governors would have an infinite number of 90-day emergency renewals where the legislature is merely 'informed' of the intention but not required to convene, vote, or otherwise impact the decision.” 

“This is exactly the opposite direction from where state legislators should be heading in the wake of destructive Covid-19 policies and indeed, many of our states have already made changes to their laws to more heavily involve the legislature in the decision-making process. We must not go backwards.” 

“With our mission to uphold our state constitutions and individual liberties squarely in mind, we are taking the following actions:” 

“1. We oppose the current ULC-proposed legislation for standardizing emergency public health powers across all 50 states and we will oppose any amended effort to do the same.” 

“2. We call on the ULC to reject formalizing their support for this model legislation.” 

“3. We call on the governors and legislative leaders of our states to not only swiftly reject this proposed legislation but also to commit to enacting more statutory and constitutional safeguards against the misuse of emergency powers.” 

“4. We call upon our governors and fellow Representatives and Senators to examine our financing and support of the ULC and determine if its current focuses are in line with our state's interests.” 

“If Covid-19 taught us nothing else as a country, it is that we do not have to submit to the interests and tactics of so-called experts to direct our lives, absorb information, and accept unnecessary medical risks. This proposed ULC legislation is an attack against those people who stood up for themselves, their children, and their businesses--the ones who would not comply.” 

“We will not let their freedom be legislated away.”

The update is being considered as many of the “mitigations” Governor J.B. Pritzker used were found to be flawed. Earlier this year a Cochrane Review was released noting the ineffectiveness of masking and the genesis of mandatory masking in activist ranks of the left. The review’s lead author Tom Jefferson, senior associate tutor at the University of Oxford, told Maryanne Demasi that after reviewing 78 studies involving 610,872 participants, the team determined masking. 

“There is just no evidence that (masks) make any difference. Full stop. My job, our job as a review team, was to look at the evidence, we have done that. Not just for masks. We looked at hand washing, sterilisation, goggles etcetera…” Jefferson told Demasi, according to Daily Citizen. 

He further added that the fervor for mandatory masking began with leftist activists in positions of power, such as the Castens and their political circle. 

“When academics and politicians started jumping up and down about masks. We call them ‘strident campaigners’. They are activists, not scientists,” Jefferson said.

Journalists have also uncovered rampant government censorship surrounding the mitigations. Stanford’s Virality Project was shown to have successfully pushed social media companies to remove truthful content regarding side effects from Covid vaccines, social media users opining that vaccine passports were removing American freedoms, the deaths of celebrities post-vaccination and breakthrough cases of Covid post-vaccination among many other instances. 

Most notably journalist Matt Taibbi revealed internal communications from the Virality Project in which the group notes it successfully sought the censorship of “true content which might promote vaccine hesitancy” including sharing true stories of vaccine injuries.