Illinois Gov Pritzker's response:
Within a few hours yesterday after two Romanian churches filed an emergency injunction pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Kavanaugh ordered Gov. Pritzker to respond by 8:00 p.m. Thursday night. Just before the deadline, Gov. Prtizker issued “guidelines” for houses of worship, none of which are mandatory.However, the churches argue this is insufficient:Liberty Counsel represents Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church and Logos Baptist Ministries.
The guidelines are only suggestions and contain no legally enforceable requirements whatsoever. The governor is no longer imposing his draconian 10-person limit on church services.
Liberty Counsel will file a reply to the Supreme Court arguing that Gov. Prtizker’s unconstitutional orders are capable of repetition yet evading review. Also that his supposed voluntary cessation of these orders on churches does not moot the case, because as he unilaterally issued the orders and aggressively enforced them, and now repealed the church restrictions, he could just as easily reinstate them.This is a problem with both the Illinois and California cases. In both circumstances, the states either relaxed or eliminated their previous restrictions unilaterally, in hopes of eliminating the particular issues while preventing the Supreme Court from forcing their hands with a ruling. The South Bay Pentecostal case takes the same tack:
“We’re asking for the U.S. Supreme Court once and for all, you are the supreme authority of the land. Make a ruling that’s just not for all sake, but all churches sake, not just for California’s sake, all across America we need a ruling in this matter,” said [United Pentecostal Bishop Arthur] Hodges.As I noted yesterday, the Catholic News Agency release on Newsnm's order and California dioceses' reopening plans discusses the South Bay Pentecostal case at some length, indicating that Abp Gómez and by implication the USCCB are looking at these cases with some interest. The fact that both Illinois and California were clearly willing partially to back down on the restrictions suggests they recognize the weakness of their cases.Despite the fact that Newsom gave the clearance for churches to reopen, Hodges is still moving forward with the lawsuit since they’re limited to 25% of its capacity or 100 people people, whichever is less.
“We still have a problem here because that is a clear discrimination against churches because no other enterprise in California has those restrictions placed on them, only churches. This is a clear violation of our constitutional rights to free exercise in assembly,” Hodges said.
He also says he’s setting a precedent when it comes to taking his case all case all the way to the Supreme Court.
“We need a ruling at that level that will settle this issue once and for all. We don’t want to be going through this three months from now, and that’s a very real possibility,” Hodges said.
