Macon Reporter

Republican state Rep. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville) says he always feared it would come to this.

Almost a year to the day since Gov. J.B. Pritzker put his first mitigation order in place as a way of staving off the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, Halbrook is now blasting all his related executive actions as acts of “COVID fascism.”

Halbrook has long been one of the governor’s loudest critics when it comes to his handling of the pandemic, at one point telling the Macon Reporter “the goalpost keeps moving in terms of what it will take for Gov. Pritzker to reopen our state and before long I think you’re going to see some level of civil disobedience because of it."

Earlier this year, the veteran lawmaker was on hand for a rally in Springfield where demonstrators took to the streets to demand that the governor put an end to the order that forced small businesses across the state to shutter after the government deemed them nonessential.

Halbrook said he knew then that what he calls the governor’s disconnect from the people he’s supposed to represent was destined to be a bigger problem than many imagined, especially for the people of his 102nd District.

 “I don’t begrudge people born into wealth, but when you have the kind he has you’re not going to connect with the everyday person,” he said. “He just doesn’t have any idea about rural Illinois.”