Barrington Hills… State Representative Martin McLaughlin (R-Barrington Hills) released the following statement:
“After just two weeks in office, I am embarrassed. I am embarrassed to call myself a member of this Illinois State Legislature. I am ready and eager to help our state turn things around. I spent 15 months running a campaign to change the dismal course that Illinois has been on for decades. I did it because we need to address the real problems facing every hardworking Illinoisan. The General Assembly must work collaboratively to find real solutions. We need to reform pensions and the property tax system, and we need to come up with a major initiative to provide assistance to small businesses. This can only happen if we are allowed to go to work!
Instead, the new Speaker has cancelled the scheduled February session days for all but one constitutionally required day to accept the House rules. I am incredulous that we cannot meet to do our jobs. This is after 10 months of executive orders with only two packed session weeks, where we saw extensive mandates and transformative bill packages rammed through in the middle of the night with limited time for review.
Nevertheless, the new Speaker has deemed our work “unsafe”. Come on! It is no more unsafe for legislators than it is for the checkout cashier at the Jewel, the Speedway gas station attendant, the delivery driver, the toll worker, the TSA agent, the Costco employee or the Dunkin Donut order taker. These folks do their jobs EVERYDAY. I could go on and on with this list, but it comes back to the sheer audacity of the majority party and their satisfaction with the status quo.
Why are we, members of the General Assembly, so special that we cannot go do our jobs? Governor Pritzker says we should not be vaccinated early, which makes sense to him, because the longer we are away from Springfield, he has more excuses to continue to run our state into the ground by issuing illegal executive fiat after fiat.
The people elected us to be in Springfield working on the massive problems that existed long before Covid-19 and to address the serious fallout from the many failures from the Pritzker Administration. We need to be able to work together and collaboratively. We will continue to fail our constituents if we do not get back and open the books Madigan has held closed for decades. I will continue to do my best to call out the corruption and bad behavior when I can. As always, I will continue to work tirelessly for all of us in the 52nd District.