Daniel Horowitz has an excellent article up at the Blaze, focusing on the question of why the hell didn’t state legislatures immediately reconvene back in March and April when many of their governors began taking unprecedented authoritarian action in order to supposedly combat a virus. Why didn’t the legislatures reconvene in states that saw many cities inflict enormous economic pain almost immediately with forced shutdowns of business, throwing hundreds of thousands of out work almost overnight?
Because they just don’t really care. Many of the Republicans say the right things, but there is no action to back it up. In Michigan, where Whitmer assumed the power of a dictator, and wielded it in you’d expect of a newborn tyrant, the Republican legislature could’ve done something to put a halt to the carnage, but did they?
There is a serious conversation about executive emergency power that is just not happening, but it must, if we’re to avoid a repeat of 2020. These unchecked emergency powers allowed governors and mayors to precipitate the most destructive man-made disaster in history. It was clear that this was going to happen back in March, when governors began announcing their insane shelter-in-place orders for entire states. It was madness, and legislatures should have reconvened and brought in experts with real data, not only on the virus, but also on the short and long-term costs of suicidal lockdowns, and their effect, if any at all, on the spread of the virus itself. This did not happen.
Even here in Oklahoma, cities held captive by Democratic mayors and councils were forced to endure the unnecessary destruction of economic shutdowns with no help at all from the legislature or the governor.
Emergency powers need to be removed entirely, they clearly serve no constructive purpose. Mayors and city councils must be stripped of all emergency powers. No more wanton violation of the rights of citizens. A standardized punishment for abuse of power must be put in place as a deterrent. If this doesn’t happen, elected self-righteous narcissists such as Norman mayor Breea Clark will most certainly abuse their power in the future, and we and our kids will pay the price.
