Chicago City Wire

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul argues that the Illinois Republican Party is wrong, and that the state can limit the number of people at a gathering without violating their First Amendment rights.

Raoul made that case in a court filing responding to a lawsuit filed by the state GOP on June 15 saying Gov. J.B. Pritzker did not have the constitutional authority to restrict the number of people at an event. That included at the party’s convention in mid-June, which had to be held in a virtual setting due to Pritzker’s May 20 executive order.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Cavanaugh, appointed by President Trump, ruled in Pritzker favor over the weekend, turning down the GOP bid.

The state has a duty to protect “the safety of the general public,” Raoul's response states.

“The 10-person limitation on gatherings is no different for First Amendment purposes than a building occupancy limit imposed by a municipal fire code,” the attorney general’s office stated in the filing. “Political rallies and conventions have always had to abide by occupancy limits, even though overflow crowds [or lack thereof] may signal strong support [or the reverse] for a particular message or messenger. The act of gathering in a confined space, which increases the risk of casualties in the event of a fire, is what is being regulated, not the message being delivered at the gathering.”

Chicago investor Jeffrey Carter, a former Chicago Mercantile Exchange board member, co-founded the venture capital firm Hyde Park Angels and the financial technology startup company West Loop Ventures, was correct in predicting the Republican Party would lose this court fight, he told Chicago City Wire.

He has counseled the Group of Seven nations, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Carter writes about issues and ideas on his blog Points and Figures.

The Illinois Republican Party said Pritzker has been inconsistent with application of his order, targeting groups he disagrees with while personally attending a large Black Lives Matter rally. The attorney general responded that the GOP has been able to share its messages online.

It noted several Republican groups have continued to meet online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider, in his weekly newsletter, linked to a newspaper story that he said shows Pritzker “has been violating our First Amendment rights with his ban on gatherings of 10 or more people in Phase 3 and 50 or more people in Phase 4.”

But Carter said the state GOP has done little to impress him, and he didn't expect much from it in this current legal battle.

“The Republican Party in Illinois is feckless, rudderless, ineffective and a straw man punching bag for Democrats,” he said. “The policies put in place by [(Speaker Mike] Madigan, endorsed by Pritzker, and enforced by Raoul exacerbated the damage of the virus.  Instead of using Bayes conditional probability theory to analyze policy and protect the most vulnerable, they used broad brush strokes and killed small and medium-sized businesses all over Illinois.”

Bayes conditional probability theory, crafted by Rev. Thomas Bayes (1701–1761), an English statistician and a philosopher, attempts to explain the probability of an event occurring based on a previous outcome. It can used by financiers to rate the risk of loaning money.

In this case it might point to the history of the Illinois Republican Party when it confronts the entrenched Democratic powers, Carter said.