Raoul Vs. Lawyer DeVore For Attorney General: Illinois Election 2022

ILLINOIS — Illinois attorney Thomas DeVore may be known as the lawyer who went after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his plan for keeping school students across the state safe from the COVID-19 pandemic.

But he now has bigger aspirations as he seeks to defeat Attorney General Kwame Raoul in Tuesday’s general election, in which both candidates believe the other could be harmful to the state’s future.

Raoul, the former Illinois State Senator, is seeking another term as the state’s top lawyer, while DeVore seeks to unseat the incumbent Democrat by taking the same approach he did when he had the governor’s COVID-19 restrictions in his sights.

As expected, Raoul and DeVore plan to take very different paths as Attorney General and have targeted their opponent’s philosophies of lawmaking on key issues facing Illinoisans. Perhaps, most notable is the controversial SAFE-T Act, the sweeping criminal justice reform package that was passed by lawmakers and that is set to go into effect on Jan. 1.

Neither Raoul nor DeVore responded to multiple requests from Patch to complete a pre-election questionnaire dealing with issues facing Illinois voters in Tuesday's general election.

Among the SAFE-T Act's biggest talking points is a new cashless bail system that opponents fear would allow people who are arrested to be released from jail as they await trial. Opponents of the law insist that violent offenders will be allowed to roam free after being arrested, while proponents of the deal say that conservative politicians and their allies are guilty of spreading misinformation about the law and what it is designed to do in the long run.

The law allows more factors other than financial viability to post bond to be considered in whether a prisoner remains in custody. Other consideration will be given to the severity of the crime, the likelihood of the defendant fleeing if released, and whether they pose a threat to the general public should they be released.

In a recent debate, DeVore called the law “unconstitutional” and claimed that Raoul, as attorney general, should have done more to prevent lawmakers from passing it. DeVore pointed to the fact that more than 50 state’s attorneys in Illinois have voiced their opposition to the law and fears that it could be damaging as it takes effect.

“For all intents and purposes, the attorney general's job is bringing causes of action on numerous counts that it's unconstitutional,” DeVore said. “It is in fact unconstitutional.”

While Raoul said that there are aspects of the law that could be tweaked, he saw that is not his job, but instead that of lawmakers, who will return to work shortly after Tuesday’s election. Raoul points to the task of determining if laws are constitutional and unlike DeVore, he does not consider the SAFE-T Act to be unconstitutional.

During his campaign, he has also characterized several of DeVore's comments about issues facing Illinois as being "dangerous" — a point that DeVore has continued to dismiss as he accuses Raoul of caring more about pleasing Pritzker than he does about defending everyday Illinois residents.

DeVore, who works in private practice in southern Illinois, continues to hold strong that he had every right to question Pritzker’s right to mandate masks in schools for students and teachers. Pritzker finally lifted the statewide mask mandate on Feb. 28, but not until after DeVore had filed a lawsuit that questioned the governor’s authority to put such measures in place.

While Raoul said DeVore had the right to question Pritzker’s decision to leave mandates in place, he defended his own backing of the governor’s executive orders — many of which had to do with the pandemic. Pritzker was often the target of Republicans who disagreed with how Democrats like Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot handled the pandemic.

Raoul accused DeVore of abusing the court’s time with the lawsuit, which failed, and which was seen as a political stunt on DeVore’s part as COVID-19 cases continued to rise around the state until earlier this year when the virus started to subside. DeVore, for his part, said that Raoul had the choice of whether to defend Illinois residents or represent the governor and state agencies.

If he was attorney general, DeVore said he would have taken the side of the people and defended them against Pritzker’s “executive overreach” and said the governor would have been left to get his own attorneys.

Pritzker said, instead, he defended both the people and the government during an unprecedented deadly pandemic. He said he would do nothing different than he did because he believes the way the state acted toward the pandemic saved lives in the long run.

Raoul has also gone after DeVore for the number of lawsuits he has filed against those he views as his opposition. That includes Pritzker, who once referred to DeVore as a “grifter” as well as a special education teacher that DeVore sued after the teacher criticized DeVore on social media for his comments about students.

Raoul referred to the lawsuits as being “non-meritorious” and a waste of the court’s time.

“I don't think we want the courts to be used to stop teachers from being protective of students when somebody's going to do something that I think is just unconscionable,” Raoul said in the debate that was aired on YouTube. “The other thing that's important to look at is the outcome of those lawsuits. That lawsuit (against the teacher) was eventually dismissed. Right?”

Like with those lawsuits, Raoul criticized DeVore for the number of times DeVore went to court seeking to have the governor’s mandates overturned.

“(DeVore’s questions) were asked and answered multiple times in multiple lawsuits,” Raoul said.