Thomas DeVore, an attorney who represents Bailey and a couple other clients before Grischow, said he wasn’t surprised by Monday’s ruling because she was required to follow the precedent established in the 2nd District Appellate Court opinion.

He said he intends to continue to pursue Bailey’s case in court, adding that the next procedural step is to appeal to the 4th District Appellate Court, which has jurisdiction over appeals from Sangamon County court.

Grischow’s order “still leaves all of those issues in front of the court,” DeVore said in a phone interview. “But at the end of the day, the Illinois Supreme Court will decide these issues, so practically speaking her ruling changed nothing.”

The Illinois Supreme Court has twice declined to intervene in this case, both times at the request of Pritzker’s lawyers, first in May and then in August.

Last week, lawyers for FoxFire filed a petition asking the Illinois Supreme Court to hear the case and overturn the 2nd District Appellate Court’s ruling. The Supreme Court justices have not yet accepted or declined to hear the FoxFire case.

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office — which represents the governor and his agencies in court — wrote that Grischow’s ruling “might finally signal the end of the first lawsuit – filed earlier this year by Darren Bailey – challenging the governor’s authority to issue executive orders to protect Illinois residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.”