Pritzker Critic, Lawyer Thomas DeVore To Run For Attorney General

CHICAGO — Thomas DeVore, a major opponent of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s mask mandate and other COVID-19 mitigations, announced this week he plans to run for Illinois attorney general as a way to help people help themselves across Illinois.

DeVore, a downstate attorney who previously announced he would run for a seat on the Appellate Court in the 5th District, said in a Facebook video on Monday he instead plans to seek the office of attorney general.

The Republican's name will appear on the June 28 primary election ballot, and he said this week he will make a formal announcement Monday regarding his candidacy for the elected position. Once his candidacy becomes official, he will join the second Republican to make a run for the job, joining Deerfield attorney Steve Kim.

DeVore said in the video that he’s not sure he’s the “right guy” for the job but that, at 52, he cannot sit idly by. He said running for attorney general is the best way he knows to help the people of Illinois.

“I don’t care for politics much, I don’t like politicians,” DeVore said in the nearly 20-minute video.

He added: “My desire’s always been, and it still is today, to try to help people. I believe you can help people, not by being a legislator or something. You can help people by working with them, so they can help themselves. …. that’s the only way we can get anything accomplished.”

DeVore said his thinking changed after a downstate judge issued a temporary restraining order in connection with Pritzker’s mask mandate for public schools across the state. But after many of his legal attempts to fight against the COVID-19-related policies Pritzker has made during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic were unsuccessful, the events of the past month have pushed DeVore to do more, he said.

But DeVore filed the lawsuit that led a three-judge panel to decide last week that Pritzker’s appeal of a downstate judge’s decision on masks in school as being “moot” and that gave schools the right to decide if they would continue to require masks or make them optional.

Pritzker previously characterized DeVore as a “grifter,” which DeVore said has now led him to stand up for people. He said in the video he will fight to end “tyranny” in Illinois that the downstate attorney has taken place under Pritzker’s watch.

DeVore said in the video he would never allow that to happen should he be elected as attorney general but that he will be fine doing what he is doing now if he is not elected to replace Kwame Raoul, who DeVore said has fought for Pritzker rather than doing what's right for the people of Illinois.

“You know, we happen to have Governor Pritzker right now who I thought failed miserably in governing over the last two years, because he didn’t govern. He ruled,” DeVore said in the video. How do we stop that from happening again? And what can I do to help that to not happen? I made the decision that there’s only one way that I can help and that’s making myself available to the people of this state as attorney general.”