For decades, House Speaker Michael Madigan and everyone around him insisted that the man was always very scrupulous and extremely careful about not only the language that he used, but the language he allowed to be used in his presence. For instance, if a property-tax client of his law firm began to speak about legislation they were interested in, Speaker Madigan insisted he would immediately stop the conversation in its tracks and inform the client that he could do nothing for them. And nobody else ever said otherwise.

For what seems like an eternity, but probably just for the past year or so, infamous COVID attorney Thomas DeVore has been citing the first paragraph of Section 2 of the Illinois Department of Public Health Act to claim that only IDPH has the power to quarantine or isolate Illinoisans. And, indeed, the statute clearly states, at the top of Section 2, that IDPH has “supreme authority in matters of quarantine and isolation.” Those powers come with some strong individual-consent and due-process checks and balances, including the right to judicial review.

I was a bit flabbergasted to see last week that Republican gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin told a blatant falsehood on a southern Illinois radio station. But what came after that helps us see how the Republican primary will play out for the next four-and-a-half months.

I’ve been fascinated by election petition-gathering season this year because of the adjusted primary schedule, the crazy omicron variant, and the prevailing fear of crime, not to mention the awful weather. Petition season was always during the fall. But because the primary was moved to June 28, petition-circulators now have to get out there in the dead of winter, during the omicron and crime surges.