The feisty Illinois State Rep. Dan Caulkins minced no words in his criticism of a bill to limit Constitutional challenges to bad laws to Springfield and Chicago. Why Springfield and Chicago? Because that’s convenient for the slackers working in the Illinois Attorney General’s office. After all, which one of the “work from home” specialists living in Chicago wants to drive to Metropolis on the southern tip of the state to defend garbage laws?
Caulkins let those pushing the bill, HB3062, have it, calling their attempt to block legal challenges except in “convenient” venues is akin to the tyranny of King George III.
For those of you a little rusty in your early American history, King George III is the tyrant who pushed the British colonists in America to successfully fight for their independence from Great Britain, kicking off with the first Revolutionary War battles on April 19, 1775.
(The Center Square) – Residents looking to sue the state of Illinois on constitutional challenges to state law would only be able to file lawsuits in Sangamon and Cook counties in a measure ready to be sent to the governor.
The Senate passed House Bill 3062 late last week. Thursday, state Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Swansea, explained the reason Democrats are bringing the bill in the House.
“Over the past three years, the attorney general’s office has been forced to respond to, I would say in many cases, frivolous lawsuits that have strained the office’s limited resources,” Hoffman said Thursday during floor debate. “Whether they were COVID-related restrictions, whether they were masks, whether they were vaccines, whether they were SAFE-T Acts, whether they were assault weapons bans, and the list goes on and on.”
Republicans said if the attorney general’s resources are spread too thin, the legislature shouldn’t have passed other bills allowing the office to sue the gun industry or to go after pregnancy resource centers that don’t offer abortions…
State Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, who brought a lawsuit in Macon County challenging Illinois’ gun ban, said the bill is similar to the tyranny of King George III.
“The Democrats today are doing the very same thing. They pass unconstitutional laws to make law-abiding citizens criminals and then they make those same citizens travel hundreds of miles to go to a kangaroo court that they control,” Caulkins said.
The measure, which does not apply to claims arising out of collective bargaining disputes between the state and unions, can now be sent to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk.
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