Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

By John Ruberry

As you’ve learned in my recent posts at Da Tech Guy, Illinois’ SAFE-T Act will become effective on January 1, which will make the Prairie State the first in the union to abolish cash bail. Under very narrow circumstances, accused criminals can still be jailed, but these are among the crimes that will be non-detainable, which means, after perhaps 24 or 48 hours, they’ll walk free until their trials.

Fact checkers, an ever increasingly dishonest lot, have been running to the defense of the law, which is being championed by the far-left of the Democratic Party. Illinois’ governor, J.B. Pritzker, a likely candidate for president if Joe Biden doesn’t run for reelection, probably plans to use the SAFE-T Act, which passed the state Senate at 5:00am on the last day of the 2021 veto session, to enshrine his woke credentials for 2024. 

Illinois’ rising crime rate is a hot-button issue this election season, as it should be. The opinion of prosecutors of the SAFE-T Act is hostile. As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, 100 of Illinois’ 102 county prosecutors–they’re called state’s attorneys here–oppose the law. Tellingly, Kim Foxx, a George Soros-funded politician who is the so-called prosecutor in Cook County, where I live, is one of the two who support it. 

Claiming the SAFE-T Act is in violation of the Illinois constitution, at least 24 state’s attorneys have filed suit to prevent it from going into force.

As of October 9, these prosecutors include: 

• Tricia L. Smith, Boone County. 
• J. Hanley, Winnebago County.
• Mike Rock, Ogle County.
• Chris Allendorf, Jo Daviess County.
• Jim Rowe, Kankakee County.
• Tom Haine, Madison County.
• James Glasgow, Will County.
• Rick Amato, DeKalb County.
• Lucas Liefer, Monroe County.
• Caleb Briscoe, Greene County.
• Richard Crews, Scott County.
• Aaron Jones, Effingham County.
• Daniel Wright, Sangamon County.
• Kate Watson, Douglas County.
• James Kenneally, McHenry County.
• Ben Goetten, Jersey County.
• Eric Weiss, Kendall County.
• Jacqueline Lacy, Vermilion County.
• Tracy Weaver, Moultrie County.
• Jeremy Karlin, Knox County.
• Grace Simpson, Mercer County.
• Mike Hill, Brown County.
• Joe Navarro, LaSalle County.
• Carl Larson, Stephenson County.

And I may be way short on this count. East Peoria’s mayor, John Kahl, claims 50 state’s attorneys have filed suit again the SAFE-T Act. But I’ll stick with my number for now–I derived my figure after an exhaustive Google News search. Some of the plaintiffs are Democrat and some are Republicans. Many county sheriffs have joined in on these lawsuits, most of which list Pritzker, Illinois’ attorney general, Kwame Raoul, and the state House speaker and state Senate president as defendants.

Pritzker, along with some Democratic members of the Illinois General Assembly, are promising that changes will be made to the SAFE-T Act after Election Day, but no details are being offered. Which means that Illinois voters shouldn’t take their promises seriously. During Thursday’s televised debate with his Republican opponent, Darren Bailey, Pritzker didn’t mention any specific changes that he favors to the law. Bailey favors full repeal of the SAFE-T Act.

Pritzker, as I’ve written for my own blog, has resorted to the ad misericordiam fallacy, an appeal to sympathy as the props up the controversial law. He keeps clinging to an apocryphal story about “addressing the problem of a single mother who shoplifted diapers for her baby, who is put in jail and kept there for six months because she doesn’t have a couple of hundred dollars to pay for bail.” Breitbart, in an honest fact-check, shot holes into Pritzker’s “Diapers Mom” argument.

If the SAFE-T Act is so wonderful, then why does Pritzker have to lie when he defends it?

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.