Will County Gazette

Will County Board member Steve Balich said he welcomes those who are joining him in suing Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Balich represents District 7 on the Will County Board. He was elected to the position in 2012 after previously serving as the Homer Township clerk for four years and as a trustee for eight years.

In May he joined Will County Republican Committee Chairman George Pearson and three business owners — Samantha Palya of Absolutely Pawfect Pet Styling , Amanda Hamerman of Color Envy hair salon in Bolingbrook, and Michael Judge, of Judge Automotive in Oak Forest — in filing a lawsuit in the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division.

“This lawsuit like the one I filed in federal court should win. The problem is the deck is stacked against non-Democrats in the state of Illinois because the courts are under the control of the Democrats in Illinois,” he told Will County Gazette. “The case I filed in federal court is very different because we are asking for damages not just saying our constitutional rights are being violated. We are demanding money.”

The Illinois Republican Party, with co-plaintiffs the Northwest Side GOP Club, the Schaumburg Township Republican Organization and Will County Republican Central Committee, filed a lawsuit June 15 against Pritzker in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

It asserts the Democratic governor has unfairly applied executive orders he has issued in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While Pritzker has endorsed and participated in events that drew large crowds, he has enforced a rule limiting gatherings to 10 people or fewer, including making the Illinois Republican Party hold its quadrennial convention remotely on June 12-13, the suit alleges.

The state GOP says the loss of in-person meetings and trainings has been detrimental, especially in an election year.

The Liberty Justice Center, the Chicago-based public interest law firm, is representing the Republicans in Illinois Republican Party v. Pritzker.

“The governor’s actions are both hypocritical and illegal. The First Amendment applies equally to everyone in Illinois — not only people whose political views are supported by Gov. Pritzker,” said Patrick Hughes, president and co-founder of the Liberty Justice Center, in a statement on the LJC website. “The governor claims to believe that the freedom of assembly is such a critical right that he not only allowed last week’s rallies, he even walked in one in violation of his own executive order. The governor must be stopped from depriving the Republican Party and its local groups of the same right.”

Balich said he is “in favor of any lawsuit that supports our constitutional rights” in such a challenging time.

“I don't like how some mayors and governors are acting like dictators,” he said. “The Chinese virus won't attack people at a Black Lives Matter protest but will at a Trump rally because the virus knows right from wrong and only afflicts those the Democrats [socialist Marxist] don't like. The Chinese virus knows that people shopping at big box stores are OK, but people at church are at risk.”

Balich said he does not deny the reality of COVID-19, just the danger of it.

“By now most people have figured out the virus is real but not too deadly unless you have a condition,” he said. “[President Trump] initiating the shutdowns was based on models, not data from the WHO and the CDC. The entire world except Sweden shut down. The president was put in a corner and had no other choice based on what was happening in the entire world.

“Now after more information gets leaked to the public and actions of Democratic officials in power, people understand the situation. Most think they already had the Chinese virus, or will get it since there are so many strains. People understand it has become like the flu and resent the shutdowns. The total population is never given because after doing the math the number of people who die is such a small percent that most people will figure out the scam.”

Balich said there are 3.7 million people in Illinois, so if a “very grossly exaggerated number like 10,000 deaths was true, that is a tiny percent of the population.”

He said the pandemic has become a political weapon.

“We will all eventually get it and recover if our immune system can fight it off, just like other strains of the flu,” Balich said. “Democrats think the shutdown will hurt Trump, so they are using every tool they have to keep it going.”