Whether Executive Orders of the Illinois Governor requesting state agencies and public employers to impose mitigation measures allegedly to prevent the spread of Covid-19 can transform a public health issue into an issue of workplace health and safety

1. This Court has stated that mitigation measures related to Covid-19 are a matter of public health and not of workplace safety. National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration , 142 S.Ct. 661, 211 L.Ed.2d 448. (January 13, 2022). Justice Gorsuch has stated that “[D] ecisive executive action is sometimes necessary and appropriate. But if emergency decrees promise to solve some problems, they threaten to generate others.” Arizona v. Mayorkas , No 22-592, 598 U.S. — (May 18, 2023). Whether Executive Orders of the Illinois Governor requesting state agencies and public employers to impose mitigation measures allegedly to prevent the spread of Covid-19 can transform a public health issue into an issue of workplace health and safety. 2. Illinois Public Act 102-667, Section 5 (enacted November 2021 and effective June 1, 2022) (adding 745 ILCS 70/13.5 to the Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act), amended the HRCA to state that that Act’s protection of an employee’s right to refuse medical treatments or procedures which conflict with their sincerely held religious belief did not extend to Covid-19 mitigation measures in the workplace. The HRCA was amended after Illinois employees were granted protection ii from Covid-19 vaccine mandates pursuant to the HRCA as it existed at the time. See, Jane Doe et al v. Northshore University Health System , N.D. Illinois No. 21-cv-056832 (November 30, 2021); Velvet Darnell et. al. v. Quincy Physicians and Surgeons Clinic, S.C. and Blessing Corporate Services, Inc. , Case No. 2021 MR 193 (18th Judicial Cir. Adams County, IL October 1, 2021). Whether Public Act 102-667, on its face, strips the HRCA of its intended protection for sincerely held religious beliefs in the workplace and, as such, violates, the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.