Prairie State Wire

House Minority Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) laid out the House GOP’s priorities for the legislative session.

The House GOP has created working groups to help better manage many of the state’s problems. The working groups will focus on protecting at-risk children, supporting women, improving economic outcomes for employers, increasing literacy in children, and improving public safety. 

“We've created five working groups to lay the groundwork for the change that we believe our state needs,” McCombie said in a press conference. “These groups are going to create policies that will make positive impacts on the way we live and our children's future, the economy, and the growth of our communities. We can never stand by silently with children and our most vulnerable suffering harm while in the care of our state. We can't let women and family issues fall by the wayside.” 

McCombie also expressed Republicans' focus on reigniting the state's strong economy, improving its business climate while protecting its workers and bringing job creators to Illinois.

The caucus also wants to address learning loss and help develop more competitive students. A safe neighborhood is included in the party's priorities.

"We can't afford any more businesses to leave our state," she said. "Are you all aware that we have 33 Fortune 500 companies? But seven years ago, when I was first here, we had 36?” 

The representative from the northwest of Illinois also mentioned briefly talked about the upsetting state of education in Illinois and public safety. 

“When literacy in our schools is at an all-time low, we have to act," McCombie said. "When crime rates continue to climb, our priorities in the legislature must reflect that. Today, we're here to talk about each one of those priorities. And I'm here with members of the Republican caucus who will be leading these groups. Tomorrow, we're going to be hearing from the governor on his direction of the state during his term.”

The implications of the plans are varied. "The economic agenda includes establishing worker protections while using the state’s resources and Midwest location to make the state attractive to job creators,” Troy E. Taylor wrote for Shaw Local. “Helping families would be achieved by making Illinois attractive as a place to move to.” He also noted, “The literacy agenda says the state must address learning loss, improve learning literacy and restore students so they are competitive in the modern workplace.” Taylor added that “The policing agenda aims to make neighborhoods safe, protect law-abiding citizens and respect law enforcement.”

Many employers believe public safety and the economic climate are interrelated. Citadel Securities claims that security concerns played a significant role in the decision to relocate from Chicago to Miami. “The firms are having difficulty recruiting top talent from across the world to Chicago given the rising and senseless violence in the city,” said Zia Ahmed, a Citadel spokesman, told The New York Times. “Talent wants to live in cities where they feel safe.” Other firms to leave include Boeing and Caterpillar.

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski called out Chicago over its crime problem in comments to the Economic Club of Chicago. He noted McDonald’s employees in Chicago are afraid to ride mass transit. “Everywhere I go, I’m confronted by the same question: ‘What’s going on in Chicago?’” Kempczinski said, New York Post reported. Kempczinski, a Chicago resident, said the company sees the crime problem worsening daily. “We see every single day in our restaurants what’s happening at society at large,” said “It’s not going to be something that McDonald’s can solve on its own. We need to be able to do it with the public sector as well.” 

Academic performance has dropped considerably for Illinois students post-pandemic. Wirepoints recently noted the schools in the state where no students are performing at grade level. “30 schools in Illinois where not a single student can read at grade level. Twenty-two of those schools are part of the Chicago Public Schools and the other eight are outside Chicago,” Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner wrote for Wirepoints. “The failure list in math is even longer. There are 53 schools statewide where not one kid is proficient in math.”