Pritzker Lifts School Mask Mandate As Supreme Court Denies Appeal

SPRINGFIELD, IL — The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear Gov. J.B. Pritzker's appeal to rulings by trial and appellate court judges in a challenge to his implementation of the school mask mandate.

Pritzker issued a statement in the wake of the decision announcing that the state will remove its school mask mandate Monday.

The state Supreme Court issued a pair of orders in four consolidated Sangamon County court cases, including Austin v. Pritzker, which was brought on behalf of parents and names nearly 150 school districts across the state as defendants.

On Feb. 4, Sangamon County Circuit Judge Raylene Grischow granted a temporary restraining order in those cases that voided certain emergency orders Pritzker's administration issued last year and blocked the governor and his agencies from enforcing parts of his executive orders.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul appealed on the governor's behalf and, on Feb. 18, a three-judge panel in the 4th District Appellate Court, dismissed the appeal as moot, finding that a committee of lawmakers' decision not to endorse the emergency rules meant they had expired anyway.

In response, the Pritzker administration filed emergency motions with the Supreme Court to hear their appeal and to stay Grischow's temporary restraining order.

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In an unsigned order, the Supreme Court declined to hear Pritzker administration. Instead, the court exercised its supervisory authority to vacate Grischow's Feb. 4 order because the appeal had been "rendered moot by happenstance."

Justices Michael Burke and David Overstreet, two of the three Republicans on the court, disagreed and planned to issue a written dissent, according to the order.

In the other order, the court denied as moot the Pritzker administration's motion to stay the temporary restraining order. Burke and Overstreet also dissented.

The court orders send the case back to Grischow's courtroom in Springfield. In his statement after the ruling, the governor said he still has the power to issue a statewide school mandate.

"I'm gratified that the Supreme Court vacated the lower court's restraining order," Pritzker said, "meaning that if a school mask mandate needs to go into effect in the future, we continue to have that authority."