Metro East Sun

Former state House candidate Mike Babcock is demanding Illinois lawmakers show up in more than just name when they return to Springfield this month to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“I don’t know what all of his reasoning is, but he definitely seems to want to put so-called nonessential businesses out of business,” Babcock, a Republican, told the Metro East Sun of how he sees Gov. J.B. Pritzker's handling of the crisis. “We need other elected officials to stand up because it's not right and we need to putting pressure on the governor.

Faced with growing opposition to the stay-at-home order he initially enacted two months ago and has since extended through the end of May, Pritzker revealed he may be willing to go as far withholding federal funds from counties and getting law enforcement involved against small business owners that defy his mandate by seeking to reopen their economies prior to the timeline he has established.

“Something is happening in Illinois that has never happened before,” the Bethalto resident said in a post on Facebook. “The governor is seeking to pass a law that nonessential businesses are being told not to open due to COVID-19 for another 150 days. He has already mandated it. It will take a committee of 12 to overturn the decision and not allow it to become law. There is something fundamentally wrong with this approach. Many small businesses will go bankrupt during this extra 150-day closing of their business.”

Babcock admits that part of him frets that may be exactly what the governor wants.

“It could be his way of knocking off small businesses,” he said. “If he keeps doing the things he’s doing, he probably feels there will be less people here to oppose him as Republican small business owners flee and this state maybe remains a Democratic bastion.”