ILLINOIS STATE HOUSE DISTRICT 66: House Republican Letter to the Governor

By Press release submission

Jun 15, 2020

Illinois State House District 66 issued the following announcement on June 12

Dear Governor Pritzker,

We are writing to you today to urge you to move Illinois forward to Phase 4 of your Restore Illinois plan, as was also requested by many of our fellow legislators in the Senate. You have stated that you are consistently relying on the science to back up your plan, which now simply does not add up. It has been reported that positivity rates are way down, as are hospitalizations due to COVID-19, including in northeast Illinois. Most, if not every, other state is using a 14-day guideline to move forward, not 28, and other states in the Midwest are completely open or further along than us without dire effects.

There is no science behind allowing people in retail stores but not allowing them into a restaurant. One of our members recently visited a hospital and saw staff eating in the cafeteria, while socially distanced; thus indoor dining cannot be the problem. The last few weeks have seen protests across the state for a great cause, including the one you attended in Matteson amongst hundreds, if not thousands, of people. But yet, under your declared parameters, some businesses remain shuttered, others are too limited in their allowed capacity to fare well, they are suffering and some barely getting by, if they are even able to do so. Each day that we delay safely moving into the next phase, Phase 4, another business(es) closes, more jobs are lost and the mental, physical and overall well-being of the residents of our state will continue to worsen due to unemployment and loss of industry, not to mention near and long term loss of revenue to the State. We cannot continue to abide by flawed reasoning until the previously determined Phase 4 date of June 26th, which was set before we obtained the information we have today.

We have all heard from countless constituents, including business owners, who are struggling to get by or deciding to leave. Unemployment issues have been a constant issue for months now, with some people still without checks and little to no relief or answers from your administration. We cannot continue this way any longer. This is crushing our people, our businesses, and our economy. We must move forward in getting Illinois back to business.

We ask that you reduce the timeline to move our state forward to reopening. If our state is going to recover, we must move forward now and start Phase 4.

Sincerely,

Dan Ugaste

State Representative, 65th District

Allen Skillicorn

State Representative, 66th District

Brad Stephens

State Representative, 20th District

Margo McDermed

State Representative 37th District

Grant Wehrli

State Representative, 41st District

Amy Grant