Rockford Sun

Illinois House Democrats voted in a new speaker in January and, three months later, Republicans claim they’re still being treated unfairly by Democrats.

“House Democrats broke their promise of working together and went back to their old ways of doing business,” Rep. Amy Elik (R-Alton) said at a press conference. “Out of 697 passed out of committee, 82% of the bills were sponsored by Democrats.”

After the selection of Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch (D-Westchester), the House of Representatives passed rule changes during its spring legislative session. One of the changes allows remote committee work during the pandemic. House members also called for term limits on legislative leaders, which is now pending before the Senate.

"Republicans and Democrats need to work together more on common-sense measures to keep families safe and reduce the prevalence of tragic incidents when young children get ahold of firearms stored in the home and inadvertently harm themselves or others," Rep. Jeff Keicher (R-Sycamore) said in a Facebook post on April 15. 

As an example, Keicher said that he and Rep. Joyce Mason (D-Gurnee) are working on legislation to make buying a gun safe more affordable by reducing the sales tax from 6.55 to 1%.