Chambana Sun

State Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) is convinced the growing number of protest demonstrations creeping up across Illinois are representative of the growing level of distrust residents now hold for Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

“These demonstrations are about the way he’s mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic, but really when you lose the trust of the people the way he has it really doesn’t matter what the issue is,” Caulkins told the Chambana Sun. “People have grown skeptical of this governor and rallies like these are only going to continue as he continues to mishandle this crisis.”

Hundreds of protesters recently gathered for demonstrations outside state government buildings in Springfield and downtown Chicago where they called on the governor to put an end to the statewide stay-at-home order that has forced most small businesses to shutter over the last several weeks as a way of slowing the spread of the virus.

“The issue is objectivity and fairness,” Caulkins said. “We see our numbers and understand what’s going on in our community and we believe we’ve shown we're willing to do the things we need to do to keep safe. So, there is a lot of skepticism about the governor and his approach. We think we can be responsible enough to safely deal with this.”

More and more, Caulkins said downstate residents are coming to the conclusion that politics are at least partly fueling some of the governor’s actions.

“It seems he and his advisers are afraid that if they let other counties make their own decisions it may cause them to lose some control,” he said.

Caulkins said people look at the way there have only been a spattering of coronavirus cases downstate and walk away totally perplexed by the governor’s one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with the problem.

“I don’t think his experts are giving him good advice,” he said. “There are business communities down here that have had no outbreaks and only a few cases that have been resolved. All the decisions Pritzker’s making now people question his ability to do so fairly because for the last two months he’s relied on a failed model to do everything he’s done.”