Metro East Sun

As the COVID-19 pandemic plays out, state Sen. Jason Plummer (R-Edwardsville) is hoping Illinois voters are taking a good look at the person they installed as governor.

“It says a lot about a person when their whole reaction to someone questioning or disagreeing with them is to lash out,” he told the Metro East Sun. “As we search for answers amid this crisis, I think it’s really disappointed that this governor has shown that to be a big part of who he is.”

Facing more and more resistance 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.

“We need to be doing what we can to protect the most vulnerable, but at the same time we can’t be making more people vulnerable to other things,” Plummer said. “From the very beginning, I’ve said we need a more regional and data driven approach to working through this crisis. You see other states handling this in a much more data-driven way, while Illinois just keeps stumbling.”

With the General Assembly expected to be back in session in Springfield this month, Plummer said he has a growing list of things he would like to see as part of the agenda.

“I’d like to see the General Assembly reassert itself as a co-equal branch of government and began to work with the governor to solve this issue,” he said. “Up until this point, I question the autocratic and heavy-handed way the governor has handled everything.”