East Central Reporter

State Rep. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville) is urging voters to take a stand for their rights in the battle against COVID-19.

"The Democrats don't want you to speak up against useless COVID restrictions for school children or the indoctrination that is happening in the classrooms,” Halbrook recently posted on Facebook. “And now when you do speak up anyway, they want to call you a terrorist, even compare you to the 9-11 attackers. None of these people deserve to be in office at this point."

Halbrook has long taken issue with the restrictions enacted by Gov. J.B. Pritzker as a way of controlling the spread of the virus, at one point deriding all his executive actions as examples of “COVID fascism.”

Halbrook recently told 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 lawmaker attended a rally in Springfield where protesters demanded 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 the governor’s disconnect with the people he’s supposed to speak for only stood to make issues worse.

“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.”

Halbrook has also recently taken issue with critical race theory teachings (CRT), organizing an online discussion on the issue soon after the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules’ (JCAR) approved the Illinois State Board of Education’s "Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards."

Halbrook said he sees things the same way as state Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur), who recently reminded voters, "We have an election in a couple of years and with a lot of hard work and some good candidates hopefully, we'll be able to attack this and turn this around.”

"That's maybe our only recourse to turn this tide around, to deal with it on some House races and the statewide races next up in 2022," Halbrook said. "With two-thirds of the kids in elementary that are not meeting grade standards for math and English, and this is where we desire to go... I think it’s a wrong move.”