Pritzker pushes back on Trump election order

CHICAGO (WGN) — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday had a forceful response to President Donald Trump’s executive order signed earlier in the day to overhaul elections, including requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.

“Voting is a fundamental right and sacred responsibility of every American. Yet, once again Donald Trump is ignoring the rule of law and circumventing Congress,” Pritzker wrote in statement released Tuesday evening.

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The order’s requirement signals that the president is not waiting for congressional Republicans to pass their long-anticipated Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, which has aimed to do the same thing.

Pritzker’s statement continued:

“We need to call this what it is: another illegal, extreme, and dangerous attempt to take power away from the American people and hand it over the wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, who wishes to decide which U.S. citizens can and can’t vote. ​ 

“We will not blindly follow illegal orders because Donald Trump wrote them down on a piece of paper. Illinois follows the laws of the land – not the decrees of an aspiring king hell bent on disenfranchising millions of voters who deserve to have their voice heard.” 

“In the face of these attacks on voting rights, Illinois will continue to administer free and fair elections while standing up for strong, secure, and accessible democracy.”

Trump’s order is likely to face legal challenges, given that the Constitution gives authority over elections to the states. While Congress has the power to regulate voting — and has done so to pass such laws as the Voting Rights Act — the Constitution makes clear that states have primary authority to set the “times, places and manner” for elections.

Pritzker is a frequent critic of the president. Speaking last week at the liberal Center for American Progress in Washington, Pritzker described Trump’s first couple of months in office as “true villainous cruelty by a few idiots.”