McHenry Times

Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently signed into law an amendment to the Health Care Right of Conscience Act (HCRCA) to ensure employers are not in violation of the act when they put in place rules meant to block the spread of COVID-19, but not before some Republican lawmakers had their say on the Senate floor. 

State Sen. Minority Leader Dan McConchie, (R-Hawthorne), noted that the U.S. is the one place in the world where its people can have their own beliefs and exercise those beliefs with protection from the government. 

“The beauty of representative government such as ours is that we can elect people who either share, support or will defend the beliefs,” he said on the Senate floor. “And based upon the tens of thousands of people who went to the effort — seemingly extraordinary effort it can be at times — to fill out witness slips at a relatively last minute ... in opposition to this bill, I think it's fair to say that we all have constituents who believe that this legislation is wrong.” 

McConchie maintained that tens of thousands of people were so strongly opposed to the amendment to the HCRCA that they made a point of getting the message through to their legislators, hoping to make a difference. 

“They believe that we will listen,” he said in the speech. “They believe that their voice matters. but it seems that the only voice that matters here today to the proponents is that of the governor, who again as one of my colleagues just stated you had the only issue other than spending of money that we've done in relation to COVID-19 has been to reinforce his single-handed authority.”

Moreover, McConchie claimed in his speech that if lawmakers continue to ignore the wishes of constituents, they aren’t serving them, but are instead selling them out, and he urged everyone who took the time to express their opposition to the amendment to maintain their belief in government. 

“Even if not everyone here, or even most of the legislators in this chamber appreciated, we recognized over here on this side of the aisle that the government’s primary function is to protect and enhance citizens’ liberties and freedoms, not take them away, and we will continue to vote to protect those rights,” he said in the speech. 

Pritzker signed the amendment into law, ensuring that employers, businesses and other organizations can enact measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and its variants without legal challenge. The amendment also stipulates that enforcing any measures an employer, business or organization is not a violation of the HCRCA and, according to a release on the governor’s website, it ensures the HCRCA cannot be manipulated to create an unsafe working environment.