Lake County Gazette

State Rep. Chris Bos (R-Lake Zurich) wants Springfield to keep its eye on the corruption he insists has to end.

“I want to echo what my colleagues said before me and want to touch on another important topic that seems to be insignificant to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle,” Bos said at a May 14 press conference on the issue of map redistricting. “We continue to watch the federal investigation into the state's largest utility, Commonwealth Edison, unfold and more individuals getting thrown into that mix. If there is anything that we've learned so far it’s that transparency in state government has been completely missing from what gets negotiated here under the dome in Springfield.”

Bos says he wonders how things can ever be any different in Springfield without Democrats finally meaning what they say when it comes to reforms.

“Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim that it was a new day in Springfield when they ousted former speaker Madigan and yet here we are with maps being drawn behind the same closed doors, and critical issues like our state budget continue to be negotiated in private, which will once again be shoved down the taxpayers' throats at the eleventh hour on May 31 the same old way.”

Bos said he’s hoping that voters mean it when they insist they want to finally see change come to Springfield and nothing short of that will do.

“Here we are, we've not done a thing to move ethics reform forward in our state,” he said. “We have bipartisan common-sense solutions and proposals that should be passed resoundingly out of both chambers, including banning legislators from turning around and becoming lobbyists. But unfortunately they sit dead in committee because the Democrats refused to truly make the changes needed to reform our state government because they're still power-hungry with or without their former leader.”

Republican lawmakers insist that much is obvious by the way Democrats have sought to handle the once-every-decade task of redistricting. Republicans are accusing Democrats, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker, of going back on their word by meeting in secret to map out strategy on a new redistricting plan.

While the job of overseeing redistricting is typically left to the party in power, Republicans are hoping to have more of a say this cycle given that Census Bureau data traditionally relied on to complete the job won't be available by an end-of-June deadline. The data was delayed by the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Republicans now see Pritzker backing away from the pledge he made as a candidate to veto any map drawn by politicians as a major red flag, particularly given the state is already losing one of its 18 congressional districts because of the state's dwindling population.