Article Summary
- Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton released her economic agenda for the 2026 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
- It focuses on mirroring several of the Pritzker administration’s achievements in Congress, including on economic, cost-of-living, health care and housing issues.
- She is seeking to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 hourly and to require insurance companies to cover more birthing options. Illinois has already implemented similar measures.
- Also this week, a new political action committee with ties to Gov. JB Pritzker launched on Tuesday to support Stratton’s campaign.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
(Capitol News Illinois) – Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton is hoping to bring some of Gov. JB Pritzker’s legislative victories to the U.S. Senate as her top initiatives if she’s elected next year.
Stratton released her first policy platform this week. It details her positions on health care, cost of living, housing and economic issues. In a video statement explaining her vision, Stratton pointed to her record as lieutenant governor.
“Here in Illinois, we’ve raised the minimum wage, created thousands of new jobs, brought down the cost of prescription drugs and made child care more affordable,” Stratton said in the video. “And now I’m taking that blueprint to Washington, D.C.”
Her 29-point agenda includes several policies Pritzker’s administration has passed through the legislature since taking office in 2019. Stratton said her work in Pritzker’s administration demonstrates her ability to pass and implement policies that make life more affordable for Americans.
Read the agenda here.
Like many other Democrats, Stratton blamed President Donald Trump’s tariffs and economic policies for making life more expensive for people. But she also said the problem goes beyond the Trump administration: “Rising prices are just one symptom of a broken system. For too long, big corporations across every sector have operated virtually unchecked by Washington.”
Stratton pledged not to accept any campaign contributions from political action committees run by corporations.
However, a new political action committee with ties to Illinois’ billionaire governor launched on Tuesday to support Stratton’s campaign. The Illinois Future PAC is led by Quentin Fulks — a longtime political operative for Pritzker. It already raised $1 million, according to a news release, but because federal rules governing super PACs don’t require immediate disclosure of contributions, it’s not clear how much of the money — if any — came from Pritzker. The new PAC allows Pritzker — whose net worth is approaching $4 billion — to contribute more to Stratton’s campaign than federal individual contribution allow.
Other Democratic Senate candidates have also released policy plans. U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi released his “Trump accountability” plan in August while U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly unveiled her own economic-focused priorities on Monday.
Economics and affordability
One of Stratton’s top economic priorities is raising the federal minimum wage to $15. Pritzker signed a bill about one month into his first term in 2019 to raise Illinois’ minimum wage to $15 over six years, checking off one of his top campaign promises. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009.
Stratton also called for expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for low- and moderate-income workers. She did not specify what changes she would support.
More specifically, Stratton supports a plan to cap credit card interest rates, which she said lock people into a never-ending cycle of debt.
Stratton is also proposing a tax increase on people earning $1 million or more each year, which she said would allow Congress to pass a corresponding tax cut for middle-income earners. Illinois voters rejected Pritzker’s proposal to abolish Illinois’ flat tax structure to raise taxes on high-income earners in 2020.
Other parts of Stratton’s plan to address cost-of-living problems focus on agriculture and food availability. She’d seek to create a permanent grant program that allows states to source food from local farmers to go to food banks. That would follow a similar model as the Illinois-EATS program, which fell victim to federal spending cuts earlier this year.
Read more: Trump administration ends reimbursements for Illinois food programs
She also supports continuing funding for free or reduced-fare public transportation for seniors, students, people with disabilities and low-income workers. And Stratton broadly supports expanding the Child Tax Credit and tax credits for child care.
Health care
Stratton is also seeking to bring several state health care initiatives to the federal level, including the Illinois Birth Equity Initiative that she helped oversee.
The Illinois law requires insurers that provide state-regulated health care plans to cover pregnancy and postpartum services, including midwives, doula visits, and lactation consultants for up to 12 months after the end of a pregnancy.
Read more: Pritzker signs birth equity initiative into law
Stratton also wants to codify abortion, in vitro fertilization, contraception, and medication abortion as reproductive health services in federal law. Illinois lawmakers, in partnership with the Pritzker administration, have taken multiple steps in recent years to codify those practices in state law. Such a move at the federal level would restore nationwide access to abortion as state laws now vary widely since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
Pritzker’s administration has also made health insurance regulation a top priority, which is reflected in Stratton’s agenda. She proposed expanding federal “parity laws” to cover more mental health treatments at the same level as physical health care treatments and requiring Medicare to cover long-term care home services, as well as vision and hearing services.
Stratton also supports universal Medicare for All.
Housing
On housing, Stratton proposed creating a tax incentive to encourage construction companies to build “starter homes” that must be priced below the median price of housing, which is currently $410,800 nationally and $319,300 in Illinois, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Conversely, she proposed that Congress create a penalty to reduce tax incentives for hedge funds that buy single-family homes. Revenue from that penalty could be used to fund a downpayment assistance program for first-time home buyers, according to her plan.
Stratton also supports restricting landlords’ ability to use artificial intelligence to set rents and screen rental applications.
By BEN Szalinski
Capitol News Illinois
bszalinski@capitolnewsillinois.com
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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