Wilhour: 'There's no sense of urgency on things everyone knows are extremely important'

Rep. Blaine Wilhour | Facebook

By Bree Gonzales

May 17, 2021

State Rep. Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City) was not able to hide his displeasure after the Illinois House adjourned barely ten minutes into a recent session.

This follows growing frustrations among Republicans regarding what they perceive as stalling from Democratic lawmakers.

"It's just been another wasted day here in Springfield and we're tired of that," Wilhour said. "We came up here to do real work because the state of Illinois has real problems that are holding people back. The level of work that has been done on serious issues up here is completely embarrassing. There's no sense of urgency on things everyone knows are extremely important."

The lawmaker from Beecher City listed various call-to-actions that have taken a long time to be acted upon.

"There’s nothing done on ethics reform. It's been 577 days since Luis Arroyo was arrested and still, we haven't gained the courage or commitment here to do something so simple as banning legislators from lobbying,” Wilhour continued. “This is completely ridiculous and unacceptable. We're not doing anything to put anti-corruption safeguards in place.”

He took potshots at the House focusing more on minor matters than focusing on the wider problems the state of Illinois is facing.

“In the past 2 weeks, I'm pretty sure there's not a road left in the state of Illinois that hasn't been renamed, but nothing on ethics reform, nothing on making sure that the legislative inspector general has the real power to watch over this General Assembly that has clearly shown itself to be susceptible to extreme corruption.”

With a few days left of session, Wilhour is among many Republicans who are worried that some of their proposals won't see daylight out of the House.

Noting that “working families in the state are getting hammered over and over on every single front,” he strongly urged that “it's time to get to the real business here, and we should be ready to do that.”

Wilhour’s bills, which would amend the State Officials and Employees Ethics Act (HB2841 and HB2842), the Lobbyist Registration Act (HB2843), and the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act (HB2844), have been left pending further action since more than a month ago.