Nine Republican legislators were ejected from the Illinois House floor Thursday for refusing to wear masks in compliance with House rules.
As the nine unmasked lawmakers packed up and left the chamber, a slew of other GOP representatives followed them out in a show of solidarity.
The mini-rebellion started when State Rep. Lakesia Collins, a Chicago Democrat, requested in a motion that members either put on their masks or leave the chamber.
Republican lawmakers responded by asking for a hearing or a vote to amend the masking rule, something they have been requesting all week.
“The proper way to do this is to amend the rule,” said state Rep. Steven Reick, a Woodstock Republican. “We’ve allowed a governor to come into this body and dictate to us how we do our business. This is not right.”
Reick was originally among those called out for not wearing his mask, but put one on before the vote was taken.
Rep. Blaine Wilhour of Beecher City said Collins’ motion showed a “total lack of critical thought.” Collins countered by saying Republicans were making “their side of the aisle a clown show.”
Freeport Republican Rep. Andrew Chesney tried to paint the Democrats as hypocrites, predicting that they’d go maskless in settings outside of the House chamber, such as during functions with lobbyists.
The mask debate opened the door to bigger divisions between the two parties, as Chesney also used his speaking time to argue Democratic policies contributed to the rise in violence in Chicago.
“You say you’re fighting for those without a voice. You’re not fighting for anybody,” Chesney said. “Eight-hundred people died in your city and you said nothing.”
Collins was livid in her response, saying that it was “mindsets like yours that created those murders.”
“Your privilege, your privilege to look down on people who are living in poverty, do not have access to a simple grocery store, who vote against every policy that we have presented in this general session to uplift our communities, you voted against them,” she said.
The Democratic controlled chamber voted 66-39 to remove those without masks.
Afterward, Wilhour called the move by Collins “a charade,” and continued the Republican argument that Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has overreached with unilateral mandates handed down without legislative input.
“We’ve let this governor run wild. We’ve let the bureaucracies run wild. We flaunt the rules. We enforce them when we want,” he said. “It’s purely politics. We’re tired of the political games here. We’re tired of doing things that don’t make sense.”
Wilhour said getting kicked off the floor was “kind of unchartered territory.”
“We’ll see how it goes,” he said. “We plan on participating remotely. At least I do.”
The House’s mask mandate has been a daily subject of debate this week. On Tuesday, Democratic leadership told representatives masks had to be worn even while speaking on the microphone, though they changed the guidance Wednesday and Thursday that members could remove their masks when speaking on the microphone.
During session Wednesday, all members and staff had their temperatures checked after Republican Rep. Dan Caulkins argued the House COVID-19 protocols were being “arbitrarily enforced.”
Under the same House rule that requires everyone to wear a mask in the chamber, everyone is also supposed to pass a temperature check prior to entering the floor, Caulkins said. There weren’t temperature checks Wednesday, begging the question of why lawmakers would be disciplined for refusing to wear masks but not for failing to take a temperature check.
Divisions among lawmakers and confusion about what rules have to be followed is a “microcosm” of what’s happening in school districts across Illinois, said Republican Rep. Mark Batinick, of Plainfield.
“We’ve had no transparency on any of this,” Batinick said. “We’ve had no hearings on the governor’s mitigations. It would be great if we could work together and actually vote on some of the things that we’re supposed to do.”
On Wednesday, Collins also moved to have a slew of Republican representatives removed from the floor for not wearing their masks, but before any action could be taken, Republicans requested an immediate recess. Collins withdrew the request later Wednesday.
The House action comes less than two weeks beforer Gov. J.B. Pritzker plans to lift his mask mandate for most indoor places.
As of Wednesday night, there were 1,611 patients with COVID-19 in Illinois hospitals, down from 2,380 on Feb. 9.
Hospitalizations have dropped rapidly since reaching an all-time high of 7,380 on Jan. 12, the peak of a surge driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.
State health officials on Thursday reported 2,538 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19, bringing the average number of daily cases to 3,289 over the past week. That’s down from a record of 32,501 daily cases during the week ending Jan. 12 and the lowest seven-day average since the week ending Nov. 13.
Heath officials on Thursday reported another 73 fatalities, bringing the statewide death toll to 32,249 since the pandemic began.
Tribune reporter Dan Petrella contributed. Jeremy Gorner reported from Springfield.
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