Dupage Policy Journal

Congressional candidate Jeanne Ives joined a local business roundtable last week featuring DuPage County business owners who are concerned with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s executive orders they say are limiting their businesses.

A number of DuPage restaurants have decided they will remain open in the face of Pritzker’s regional shutdown that was effective Friday. 

“For all the business owners on this call, rightly, you feel that electing state officials are not on your side and it should not be that way,” Ives told the group in an instant message. “And it is because elected officials have not reached out or worked together for viable or fact-based solutions.”

Approximately 400 businesses tuned in for a talk by attorney Thomas DeVore regarding the legal ramifications if they remained open despite Pritzker’s executive orders.

DeVore said during the talk that the executive orders have been a disaster and that Pritzker, as well as some politicians, weren’t concerned about the business community.

DeVore said during the talk that Pritzker was fear mongering. He said while Pritzker was controlling workplaces, he couldn’t control what people did inside their own homes, such as Pritzker’s suggestion of a virtual Thanksgiving.

Thousands of businesses have had to close down due to Pritzker’s orders, 2,400 in the Chicago area alone.

Ives, a Republican, is running against Rep. Sean Casten (D-Illinois) in the Sixth Congressional District.