Dupage Policy Journal

Matt Dubiel, a GOP candidate for U.S. Senate who was one the parents in the lawsuit to unmask kids statewide, said the reason behind his run is easy.

"We're not being represented, all of us in Illinois, there's 12.5 million people in Illinois, and Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth are essentially 99 percent lockstep as they represent Illinois in the United States Senate," Dubiel told Dupage Policy Journal. "And so we're not being represented and we should be represented. In fact, that's the point of having senators is so that the state and the people, specifically the conservative people in this case."

"We're the political minority right now in Illinois, or it seems that way anyway, we're not being represented and we need to be represented. And they're representing Washington's propaganda and ideals and the Democratic Party's propaganda and ideals to us and Big Pharma's mission to us. But they're not representing we, the people of Illinois, like my family and many, many other families, a lot of them south of I-80, but, you know, west of Route 83 and north of Higgins Road. But some of them are in Cook County, too, and we're not being represented, and it's high time that we get the representation that we deserve."

"People get to choose in America what they do. And if you want to pass laws in the United States, you have to do it the right way and you have to do it at the Legislature. And then there's a process for that. So I think ultimately that exacerbated and awakened and poke to the mama bears and the papa bears in Illinois and had them all realizing, holy smokes. You know, we really have to start paying a lot closer attention and we all have to start getting way more involved in these, these boards in these decisions and these offices."

Dubeil was a class member in attorney and attorney general candidate Tom DeVore’s successful lawsuit that overturned Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s mask mandate in Illinois.

The Illinois Supreme Court refused Pritzker’s appeal on the issue after an appellate court backed up a ruling by Sangamon County Court Judge Raylene Grischow.

Illinois has been an outlier and one of the last states to relax masking restrictions.

Before DeVore’s successful lawsuit unmasking students, Pritzker gave no timeline on when parents might expect children to be unmasked.

The delay in unmasking led to "mask off" protests, student and parent strikes. In the buildup to the winning court case, thousands of parents across the state -- including Dubiel -- spoke out against school boards for keeping mask mandates in place and punishing students for mask violations. This is despite ample evidence that masking has essentially no value in limiting the transmission of COVID-19.

Dubiel will need to navigate the GOP primary if he hopes to face off against entrenched Democrat Tammy Duckworth.

Duckworth was mocked by Arkansas's Tom Cotton last year amid uproar over Critical Race Theory being taught in the military. Duckworth is a disabled veteran.

According to his campaign bio, Dubiel was raised in Downers Grove and Westmont. He has forged a career in the radio business as a producer and host. Dubiel now owns WCKG AM 1530. WCKG stands for Will, Cook, Kane and DuPage counties.