Mask mandates and political opportunists who are wasting taxpayers money.
In mid-2020, Illinois State Representative Darren Bailey made headlines by suing the Governor for imposing a mask mandate. He lost that frivolous suit when it rose to the Circuit Court level. But he did receive a lot of publicity, which undoubtedly made this GOP gubernatorial candidate happy.
In 2020, Keith Pekau, the Trump supporting Mayor of Orland Park, also initiated an expensive lawsuit about the same issue. That lawsuit cost the Orland Park taxpayers in excess of $70,000 dollars. This came at a time of greatly reduced revenues in the town due to Covid restrictions.
In 2021, in Oak Lawn, Robert Cruz, a new member of the Oak Lawn High School District 229 Board, and also an announced GOP candidate, has just introduced yet another frivolous lawsuit over the same already adjudicated issue.
Cruz had already announced that he was thinking of running for the US Senate, but has decided instead to run for the House of Representatives in the Illinois 3rd District. Cruz, a political newcomer, won his seat in an election where less than 10% of registered voters actually voted, but he obviously feels that this is some sort of mandate.
GOP politicians claim to favor fiscal responsibility, so it is surprising to see these multiple frivolous lawsuits. And Illinois taxpayers are footing the bill for these exercises in political theater because our tax dollars pay for the Illinois Attorney General to defend the Governor.
But these lawsuits, as costly and frivolous as they are, also serve to put the politician in the news. One would assume that Cruz hopes that the free publicity will help him. But this free publicity comes at a cost. The obvious financial cost to Illinois taxpayers, and the attendant health costs, and financial costs associated with possible illness.
Science shows that masking works. Science shows that vaccines work. Science and statistics tell us that the unvaccinated make up over 99% of current severe cases of death or illness due to Covid, yet among GOP voters, large numbers reject the vaccines, and insist that wearing a mask is tyranny.
Cruz will insist that he has the right to decide whether or not his children should wear a mask, and his lawsuit takes that much farther by rejecting the idea of mask mandates in favor of what he calls freedom.
But his freedom, as he calls it, could easily lead to a dramatic increase in Covid cases in Illinois among schoolchildren, and their families and surrounding communities. We can see that in GOP controlled states like Florida and Texas, where Covid cases and fatalities are increasing rapidly. We can see the results in hospitals that have no room for more patients.
No one has the freedom to endanger others. No one has the right to infringe on the freedoms of others. What Cruz and far too many others like him call freedom, most people would call selfishness.
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