Lake County Gazette

Illinois state Sen. Craig Wilcox (R-McHenry) likes the idea of a group of his Republican colleagues taking their concerns about the state’s struggling economy in the wake of the ongoing coronavirus crisis directly to Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

“The legislature is in kind of a backseat role right now where we’re not meeting in session while executive decisions not vetted are being passed through executive order,” Wilcox told the Lake County Gazette. “The only avenue to try to raise concern is through reaching out to the governor’s office.”

Republican state Reps. Allen Skillicorn (East Dundee), Blaine Wilhour (Beecher City), Chris Miller (Oakland), Darren Bailey (Xenia), Dan Caulkins (Decatur) and John Cabello (Machesney Park) recently signed off on a letter to the governor where they called on him to freeze state unemployment insurance rates and the state’s minimum wage over at least the next year.

“Right now, every resident in the state is looking to see what the government can and will do to help them through this stretch,” Wilcox added. “They’re wondering what course of action the Governor plans to take to ease the burden on me as a resident, business owner and or what have you.”

As for the proposals that have been laid out by the group of six GOP lawmakers, Wilcox said he’s convinced they are in keeping with what many people want to see.

“I think you can look back at the original vote we had on the minimum wage hike and see that a lot of people didn’t even support it back then,” he said. “I believe if we were in session right now that would be something that we would be looking to move through the legislature if we weren’t able to get the governor to take executive action.”