East Central Reporter

A downstate lawmaker is blasting Gov. J.B. Pritizker’s plan for restarting the state economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as just more empty rhetoric.

“I think it was just more of the same theater he’s been giving us with his daily press briefings,” state Rep. Chris Miller (R-Oakland) told the East Central Reporter. “It would take a Christmas miracle for all the things to happen that the governor said he needs to fully reopen our economy.”

Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” plan aims to reopen the state on a region-by-region basis that weighs how some areas of the state may be in position to move to the next phase quicker than others. The state is in Phase 2 of the plan, which allows nonessential stores to open on a limited basis as the spread of the infection ideally begins to rescind.

Miller said the plan lacks urgency, given all the economic damage being done to the state in places where few, if any, cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed.

“It’s another example of a lack of leadership,” Miller added. “The way he’s failing to do what’s in the best interest of all the people of Illinois is not the way it’s supposed to be. We need a plan that allows healthy people to go to work and make a living for their families, while vulnerable people stay home until we’ve gotten all this figured out.”

Miller said he’s convinced shutting down the state on the level of Pritzker’s stay-at-home order was never the right thing to do.

“We’ve laid off more than 500 full-time workers at our biggest hospital down here because we overreacted and the coronavirus surge that people talked about never happened,” he said. “I think it’s been just one big hoax, but people are so politically invested in the narrative now they can’t let it go. Everything about this virus has changed except some people’s overreaction to it.”