Prairie State Wire

State Sen. Allen Skillicorn has begun efforts to recall Gov. J.B. Pritzker, The Center Square reported May 26.

The Republican senator who represents the 66th District said that the issues with the Illinois Department of Employment Security’s website have gone on long enough, and that Pritzker has had time to fix them. He’s seeking another solution now.

“The governor has had ample time to fix this website,” Skillicorn said in a statement obtained by The Center Square. “I called him out on it, and nothing has been addressed nor has there been a plan presented to fix the problems. Enough is enough. The incompetence cannot continue.”

People are telling Skillicorn that they tried to get through to the IDES hotline hundreds of times daily for weeks, and that when the U.S. Department of Labor offered help, Pritzker took a different path. 

“The U.S. Department of Labor offered to help Illinois but our governor refused the help,” Skillicorn said. “The governor decided the best way to fix the website was to hand out a lavish no-bid contract. Now secure data has been unleashed into the public domain. It is an epic failure.”

Skillicorn’s recall affidavit must get the signatures of 20 House members and 10 senators, which would then qualify it to go to the State Board of Elections. Illinois citizens would have to get on board, and in 150 days, circulate a petition to get signatures from at least 15 percent of the votes for governor in the preceding election – from at least 25 counties.

Pritzker defended his response to IDES problems.

"You couldn’t possibly anticipate that we would have a number of unemployment filings that was an enormous multiple of that which occurred during the Great Recession," Pritzker said May 26. "The IDES website was designed 10 years ago; we’ve talked about this. And, of course, when this became clear that we were going to see a rush of applications, we acted as quickly as we could with a system that, frankly, you can’t just snap your fingers and replace. 

"So people are getting their calls answered, and about the clip of 2,000 per day. And we continue to work very, very hard to respond to people who could not get their application filed online, but again I want to say to anybody out there that has not filed for unemployment that needs to file for unemployment, that your best bet is to go online."