Peoria Standard

State Sen. Jil Tracy (R-Quincy) alerted Illinois residents of a new tax on their holiday shopping bills, and she's pointing a finger at Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

“Illinoisans who use the Internet for their holiday shopping will notice a new spike in sales tax rates from online retailers,” Tracy wrote in a recent Senate Week in Review post to her website. “A change in state law now requires online retailers to charge the sales tax rate collected in the municipality where the shopper lives. For Chicagoans, this tax rate for online purchases is 10.25 percent. Prior to this year, online retailers like Amazon only had to charge the 6.25 percent state sales tax. Not too long ago, they were not required to charge sales taxes at all if they didn’t have a physical brick-and-mortar presence in the state.”

Tracy asserts it’s all added up to a windfall for the state, with sales tax revenue up 17% from January to September this year compared to the same period in 2019, prior to the pandemic.

“The new online sales tax legislation is just one of 24 tax and fee hikes that have been put in place since Gov. Pritzker took office,” she added. “Through these increases, a combined $5.2 billion more has been spent by Illinois consumers.”

Tracy also recently took the governor to task over his handling of the COVID-19 crisis, charging that his one-man army approach to dealing with the pandemic has only served to make matters worse.

“Gov. Pritzker issued more executive orders last week, continuing his year-and-a-half long streak of unilaterally controlling the state’s response to COVID-19,” she said in an earlier Week in Review release posted to Facebook. “As of Sept. 23, the governor has issued more than 90 executive orders.”

Tracy argues that some of Pritzker’s orders have backfired, pointing to the way one of his vaccination mandates for congregate workers was instituted before negotiating with the employees, forcing the governor to include a delay for the requirement in one of his executive orders.

“Gov. Pritzker has been forced to extend the deadline for state employees in congregate facilities to be vaccinated,” she added. “The delay is due to the fact that the Governor had issued the vaccination requirement before negotiating a solution with unions representing the workers, a necessary step before implementing that type of mandate.”

The Peoria Standard reports Tracy also points to the vaccine-or-test mandate for schools Pritzker put in place before Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) officials had so much as released guidance on the policy as another example.

The Quincy Reporter reports Tracy has also recently spoken out against Democrats' push to repeal Illinois' Parental Notification of Abortion Act.

Despite objections from Tracy and fellow Republicans, the House, with its Democratic majority on Oct. 27 gave final approval on a measure that would no longer require that parents or guardians of an under-18 child be notified when she seeks an abortion. The Illinois House vote of 62 to 51 is enough to send the law to Governor J.B. Pritzker's desk, ABC7 Chicago reported, but because it didn't get a 3/5 majority or 71 votes, the repealed law wouldn't go into effect until June 1, 2022.

Tracy also took exception with Democrats' methods in advancing the measure in Springfield.

“As we said earlier, why do bills have to be dropped in the middle of veto session when they're not being properly vetted and even allowed time to read them and let the public know what's going on?” she asked.

The senator sees a glaring inconsistency in how the measure would treat minors in matters of health.

“Most parents had to write a note for any type of medication to be given to their child at school, even if it’s just an aspirin or Tylenol,” she added. “If we say take such care in situations like that, how can we justify doing away with parental notification of abortions? I’m not talking about authorization or consent. It is notification. It’s letting the parents know their child is going to be undergoing a major medical procedure so that the parents can be aware and help provide that child with a mental and physical health care that they desperately need in such a critical time.”

Finally, the veteran lawmaker has also been front-and-center in pushing what she views as true ethics reform in Springfield, according to the Peoria Standard.

“This year the Senate Republicans introduced more than a dozen bills aimed at curbing corruption in Illinois and holding legislators accountable for their actions,” Tracy stated at a news conference. “It is unfortunate that we seem to be meeting opposition every step of the way in our effort to reform the process.”

Republicans latest push comes in the wake of Legislative Inspector General (LIG) Carol Pope deciding to step down from her post, citing what she deemed to be a lack of commitment to the kinds of changes she argues are clearly needed.  

Pope announced her resignation would be effective Dec. 15.