Will County Gazette

House Republican Floor Leader Mark Batinick is pushing for lawmakers in Springfield to take on the role he argues voters across the state elected them to have when it comes to the state’s direction.

“You look at other states, I don't think the governor should have the authority to do nearly two years of 38 emergency orders and do all these rules and mandates any more than I think Gov. DeSantis in Florida should be doing, you know, mandates saying that you can't add a layer of protection of masks at the local level,” Batinick said at an Oct. 20 news conference on the issue of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s list of executive actions. “That's not the way it's meant to be done.”

Batinick has thrown his full support behind a bill proposed by Rep. Dan Ugaste (R-Geneva) that seeks to rein in Pritzker’s executive authority while also working to help lawmakers regain the equal voice they’re entitled to have, he says.

“We’re meant to have legislative input for a reason,” he added. “And it's also a matter of trust a little bit. I think you're seeing a lack of trust in government. I think it's pretty fair to say there's a big lack of trust for many of our citizens because of the lack of transparency. You know you have elected officials that maybe take statistics and data out of context pretty significantly. And if we were to have a more open and transparent process, I think you’d probably have more compliance with what we're doing and more trust.”

At its core HB 843 seeks to pave the way for lawmakers to be involved in emergency orders after 30 days. In legalese, the measure further mandates that if the governor “issues a proclamation declaring a disaster, the governor may extend the proclamation or make an additional proclamation regarding the same disaster, but the extension or additional proclamation shall be void and have no legal effect unless within 5 days of the extension or additional proclamation he or she receives written approval to extend the proclamation or make an additional proclamation from 3 legislative leaders or the General Assembly adopts a joint resolution approving the extension or additional proclamation.”

Finally, the bill outlines that a disaster proclamation issued, or a disaster proclamation regarding the same disaster, "shall be void and have no legal effect if at any time the general assembly adopts a joint resolution declaring the proclamation to be void."

Batinick insists he’s long stressed to the governor that there needs to be public buy-in for the actions that he takes on the pandemic.

“Things needed to make sense to people,” he added. “And right now, I feel like we're losing the public buy-in on the pandemic and how to move forward.”