I’m not even going to bother to link to Melinda Gates’s Washington Post op-ed. She thinks more money needs to be spent which is facile and that there needs to be a nationally coordinated plan for dealing with COVID-19 which is worse. Short of declaring martial law the federal government does not have the authority to compel state and local governments to do anything.
IMO one of our gravest problems is that the legislatures of the various states are mostly sitting on their hands, content to let the states’ governors do the heavy lifting and, coincidentally, bear the political costs.
Under our system of government legislators represent the people. It is vital for the state legislatures to act since it represents the assent of the people to the measures being taken and, further, motivates the legislators themselves to advocate the policies to the people of their districts. The present passive-aggressive stance being taken is actually impeding the responses.
We need to stop thinking of ourselves as consumers of government policy and start thinking of ourselves as producers of the policy.
I do think that there are things that should be done and should have been done from Washington. I’ve mentioned some of them before. They involve powers that the Congress has granted to the president. That I don’t think the Congress should have delegated those powers to the president is an issue for another time.
It is vitally important that the Congress exercise its authority in acting in response to COVID-19 for the reasons I have outlined. Idleness is reprehensible.
My impression is Illinois legislature will likely meet less than any other state legislature this years.
From a practical standpoint, the governors have powers that derive from the legislature, and there is simply no way that the legislature has anticipated all of the issues arising from this novel virus, nor do I suspect are those grants sufficient. I think there is a fifty-percent chance that a court ruling will declare the Illinois governor’s emergency powers bounded by the 30-day limitation in the statute. And in any event, I think his five-step plan for reopening assumes to some extent the emergency will be mostly over, but his restrictions will remain to prevent backsliding. He doesn’t have that authority.
Also, governors don’t make law, they are not in charge of the local police that enforce the law, or in many states, the lawyers that prosecute the laws. His emergency orders rely a lot more on an informal buy-in, or at least support from local government officials. Laws are essential to build the consensus.
“We need to stop thinking of ourselves as consumers of government policy and start thinking of ourselves as producers of the policy.”
Indeed. As you say, the state abdication to governors mirrors the House/Senate abdication to the President.
I’m not a good enough historian to know if people have always been disengaged from policy. But it seems to be worse currently than at any point in my life.
There is a quote, possibly apocryphal, attributed to an English stateman, which was ‘I am a man of principle. However one of my principles is expediency’. Passing the buck and blaming anything wrong on others have joined this quote in the politician’s armament.
‘I’m not a good enough historian to know if people have always been disengaged from policy. But it seems to be worse currently than at any point in my life.’
There were worse times for authoritarianism in our history, notably during the Southern Rebellion, when Woodrow Wilson let AG Mitchell run hog-wild during the Great War and FDR during WWII, but I agree not in my lifetime. Hopefully this too shall pass and quickly.
In this emergency; every partisan preference is getting implemented.
1). Immigration halt
2). Green deal (oil producers shutting down, car driving down 50%+)
3). MMT (look at the Fed balance sheet)
4). Regulation rollback
It is the same thing at the State and Local level. Given that, you can see why some are in no hurry for Legislatures to come back.
@Dave, I don’t know if you’ve seen the leaked memorandum from the Attorney General’s Office to the State Attorney Generals. The conclusion:
“It appears that the stay-at-home recommendations and social distancing are great recommendations. Those things should be practiced; but criminal enforcement of the EO is a different question. My research leaves me less than confident that a reviewing court will hold that the Governor has the authority [to] close businesses, bar attendance at church services and assemblies in excess of ten citizens (particularly if they are assembling to redress grievances). From a strict enforcement standpoint, although well-intentioned on an emergency basis, the EO is very broad and does not appear to meet strict scrutiny – this is not to mention the EO appears to be beyond the framework of the specific Act it cites as support.”
His point about the statute is not just about the 30-day limitation, but that the legislation does not authorize utilization of any police forces to enforce the orders.
https://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/COVID-19-Memo-4.21.20-003.pdf
No, I hadn’t seen that. It’s interesting. As I’ve noted before, just because Gov. Pritzker is a lawyer does not mean he’s a good lawyer. I think he’s indifferent to the requirements of the law, assuming with good reason that the legislature will give him anything he wants. Or more precisely, everything he wants will be what the legislature wants him to do.