Chambana Sun

State Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) says Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic keeps growing worse by the day.

“This is the worst case of leadership I’ve ever seen,” Caulkins told the Macon Reporter. “You cannot just make people follow you. I think the governor has lost control of the people of this state and now is resorting to dictatorial practices.”

Caulkins points to new emergency rules filed by the governor that highlight any business owner found guilty of violating his stay-at-home-orders faces up to a year in jail as his latest strong-arm tactic.

Prior to that, he hinted that counties that move to restart their economies before the timeframe he has outlined for them run the risk of losing federal funding. Business owners who do likewise could face criminal prosecution.

“It’s a total disregard for the rule of law,” Caulkins said. “What the governor is doing is shameful and makes every politician look bad. We settle our differences at the ballot box and I hope the people of Illinois will remember everything that’s happened when November rolls around.”

Caulkins said everything the governor has gotten away with up until this point leads him to believe that almost anything goes as the crisis continues to play out.

“We believed him in the beginning when we were told about a credible threat where no one wanted to see our health care system overrun,” he said. “We did all the things we were asked to do, but since then it’s just been one plan after another that we haven’t been given the reason for. I know staying at home is not going to make the coronavirus go away.”

In Caulkins’ mind, if the governor had stuck with the original plan that was laid out many lives could have been saved and much of the other damage would have been mitigated.

“If we had stuck with a regional approach to fighting this, where we focused on protecting the most vulnerable, I believe we would be much better off,” he said.