Pennsylvania Amendments Passed By Voters, Curtail Governor’s Emergency Powers

Governor Tom Wolf signs legislation from Harrisburg, PA, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

It was bound to show up on ballots, and now it has. Pennsylvanian voters have approved two constitutional amendments to curtail the executive power of the governor’s disaster declaration.

Pennsylvania voters have approved two ballot questions that would curtail the governor’s emergency powers, a victory for Republican lawmakers in what was widely seen as a referendum on the Wolf administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Unofficial results show 54% of voters backed amending the state constitution to allow a simple majority of lawmakers to terminate a disaster declaration at any time. Currently, such a declaration can only be ended with the governor’s consent or with support from two-thirds of the General Assembly.

Roughly the same percentage of voters approved a proposal that limits a disaster declaration to 21 days, instead of 90, and transfers power to extend an emergency order from the governor to the legislature. The Associated Press projected Wednesday morning that voters had approved both measures, with 73% of the projected total votes counted.

Previously little noticed, Pennsylvania’s disaster declaration process became a political flashpoint for Republicans, who — with support from a few Democrats — championed the proposals as a check on an executive they repeatedly clashed with over the state’s pandemic response.

At the heart of the Pennsylvania amendments is not the power to declare an emergency, justifiably well within the purview of a governor, but the open-ended and often unilateral executive power that came with the Covid-19 pandemic. The extended lockdowns, health restrictions, social distancing, school closings, and capacity limits all were funneled under the emergency declarations. But the real stickler for folks behind the Pennsylvania amendments was the government selection of what businesses were and were not essential, causing economic distress and emotions ranging from frustration to anger.

Pennsylvania wasn’t the only state, of course, and they will not be the last to see such action taken up at the ballot box in reaction. From the reasonable measures, such as precautions at hospitals, to the utterly ridiculous, such as restricting the sale of seeds, a review of of governmental reactions to how the pandemic response was handled was inevitable. The question being, will the reaction be reasonable, or ridiculous.

Measures that require a governor to seek legislative approval to continue a long term declaration after a certain period of time seems perfectly reasonable. Some cases such as restricting liquor sales, church attendance, and restaurant capacities have already found their way into the courts. Now the citizens want their saw in how the next crisis might be handled. It bears watching, since while the threat of Covid is mercifully fading, the reaction to the pandemic by the folks that suffered through it is just getting going.