Lake County Gazette

Rep. Martin McLaughlin (R-Barrington Hills) can’t fathom how Gov. J.B. Pritzker can justify moving state lawmakers to the front of the COVID vaccination line when legislators have barely set foot in Springfield since the pandemic hit.

“When we’re not assembling numbers in Springfield that can come close to what you see at the meat counter at Costo, I wonder what’s there to worry about,” McLaughlin told the Lake County Gazette. “I really think it’s a joke that we’re not assembling and there’s no way we should be going before the elderly or anyone else that’s in a way high-risk category.”

After long insisting he felt the same way, the governor altered his position in instituting a mandate that allows any of the state’s 177 lawmakers to now be eligible for the shot during Phase 1B of the statewide plan.

Pritzker’s plan for lawmakers places them in the same lines as seniors, teachers, police officers, firefighters, paramedics and grocery store workers in terms of the pecking order.

“It makes no sense that we would be jumping anyone, especially our most vulnerable people,” McLaughlin said. “It’s just more of the governor’s shoot-from-the-hip style that have made this crisis even worse with things like crippling our small businesses and running more people out of Illinois. We’ve got to become more strategic.”

McLaughlin said that all starts with lawmakers becoming more involved in the state’s direction instead of allowing the governor to rule by executive action.

As it is, Illinois House and Senate members have met for an in-person session in Springfield twice since new legislators were sworn in roughly four weeks ago. For the rest of the month, the two chambers have just one in-person session scheduled between the two bodies.