South Cook News

Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau is blasting lawmakers in Springfield over a number of enactments they signed off on during the lame-duck legislative session.

Gov. JB Pritzker quickly signed off on the $12,094 raises, boosting base pay for lawmakers making up the 103rd General Assembly to $85,000, or 18% more than their predecessors’ base pay; a recent Illinois Policy report said. The latest hikes come on top of annual inflation boosts lawmakers added to their last raises.

Pekau took to social media to expose the pay raise being linked to the sexualization of children.

"The IL General Assembly voted themselves an 18% pay raise, voted to force school districts to sexualize our children, and voted to violate a Constitutional right," he posted on Facebook recently. "If that is not enough, they slipped an election law change into a bill making it lawful to do what a judge said 'would be (an) obvious way to commit fraud.'"

The bill passed the Illinois House 63-35, with approximately 20 members not voting. The State Senate passed the measure 30-21, adding the base pay raise to the 2.4% annual cost-of-living increase lawmakers gave themselves in 2019—which some have blasted as also being secretive.