State Rep. Tom Morrison (R-Plainfield) fears Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s much-debated, statewide order for combating COVID-19 is creating even larger health and welfare problems for Illinois residents.
“The governor and his inner circle are ignoring a growing public health crisis potentially greater than the coronavirus itself: social isolation, substance abuse, deferred medical and dental care, depression, suicide, domestic abuse, child abuse and poverty,” Morrison told the North Cook News. “We should continue efforts to protect vulnerable populations of Illinoisans, but the governor's current plan will unnecessarily cause greater, possibly irrecoverable harm to the whole of the state.”
Pritzker recently went public with details of his five-phase plan to reopen the state, explaining that his “Restore Illinois” public health plan will operate on a region-by-region basis that recognizes some areas of the state will be ready for business sooner than others. But even as he talks about the state already being in the plan's Phase 2, which allows nonessential stores to open on a limited basis, the governor adds he doesn’t envision the state be ready for Phase 5, or ready to fully resume business operations, until a vaccine or effective treatment for the novel coronavirus becomes available.
“The governor's plan is one of the more restrictive plans in the country by the length of time between its reopening stages and its categorization of such a diverse state into just four regions,” Morrison said. “Downtown Chicago, with its high rises and dense population, is tied with suburbs and even ex-burbs, meaning successful virus limitations here in our local communities are moot if infections continue anywhere else in the vast region.”
With small businesses forced to pay the biggest price stemming from the statewide stay-at-home order the governor first imposed more than six-weeks ago, Morrison said he is co-sponsoring the Fair Business Treatment Act that would allow small business owners to open for business the same way big-box retailers have continued to do throughout the crisis.
“Given that the state is already a tough environment to work in, the state should not continue to hamstring small businesses,” he said. “They cannot carry such large overhead costs like their property taxes, for example, by serving just a tiny fraction of, or in some cases, zero customers.”
Morrison also said the governor’s one-man show in terms of making all the decisions about the direction of the state is far from the way things are meant to be.
“The legislature is a co-equal branch of government and should be in session now,” he said. “The governor should not be acting unilaterally for such a long or indefinite period of time.”
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