Trying to understand how last nights vote in the state legislature impacts the shutdown immediately and why the upcoming legal fight concerns constitutional checks & balances. There is a ton of conflicting information to wade through. I hope this helps. I always try to present info on this blog and social media without political theatrics.
As we all now know, last night the State Senate and House passed a resolution to terminate the emergency Gov. Tom Wolf issued in March. (This probably should have been done 2 weeks ago)
What does this mean?
• Short term nothing changes. At least not in terms of immediately ending the shutdown or the Governors phased reopening plans.
A Wolf spokesperson stated: “this resolution does not affect the Secretary of Health’s order including business closure orders, building safety orders, and business safety orders, and therefore the Administration’s phased reopening plan and associated orders would remain in place even if it passes”
This shapes up a coming court battle. The Governor on one side and those who supported the resolution on the other are framing up their legal arguments on what this means since the Governor is not expected to sign a termination declaration. And it appears the whole thing will be sorted out by the courts which will take time.
Opponents to terminating the emergency declaration have expressed concern about losing federal aid. The problem with this is that the need for federal aid is because of a government imposed shutdown. End the shutdown and we will no longer need massive federal aid packages. This sort of becomes a chicken and the egg argument.
• From a local standpoint, I’ve written my thoughts on the continued shutdown and further Lower Macungie Commissioners unanimously approved and sent a resolution to the Governor asking him to “to accelerate the opening of Lehigh County businesses and industries, specifically business and industries in Lower Macungie Township, at the earliest possible date and in the most expeditious manner possible.” We were the first community to do so. At least one other has since done the same.
In Lower Macungie, sadly we’ve seen 34 deaths due to Covid-19 or Covid 19 RELATED issues (compounded with other issues). 32 of these have been in long care facilities with the average age being over 80. It’s very clear the highest risk has been and remains with one very specific segment of our community where yes, extreme caution is still warranted. This is a reason we spearheaded a volunteer effort over the last 4 weeks to get hand sanitizer into the hands of township senior citizens over the age of 80.
• Coequal branches of Government and seperation of powers. Beyond that, and just as important in my opinion this is a going to be a critical court decision on Constitutional balance of power and co-equal branches of Government. I’ve been writing for years on my blog about concerns in virtually all levels of government from Federal, to State to local County with erosion of constitutional checks and balances.
Executive overreach is a major problem and has eroded constitutional checks and balances. A future decision on this issue could go a long way to re-establishing co-equal branches in the state of PA.
When the dust settles and even earlier I hope to advocate for the proposed constitutional amendment that would require legislative assent to a disaster emergency declaration after 30 days. This would go a long way to restoring a constitutional check on futures issues like this.