The governor said Friday he wouldn’t surrender his emergency powers. State Republicans are backing a bill that would force him to.
It was last July when California state senator Melissa Melendez first introduced a resolution in the legislature to end the COVID-19 state of emergency in her state.
Four months into the pandemic, Democratic governor Gavin Newsom had used his emergency powers to issue 47 executive orders and to unilaterally change hundreds of laws, according to the resolution.
Melendez’s resolution called for restoring “a proper balance” between the legislative and executive branches, because “an open-ended state of emergency, with boundless powers vested in a chief executive, is incompatible with democratic government.” The resolution went nowhere in the Democrat-dominated legislature. Melendez filed it again this year.
California now has one of the lowest COVID-19 case rates of any state. A USA Today Network analysis found California has one of the slowest per-person spreads of the coronavirus in the U.S. Nearly 18 million Californians are fully vaccinated, or about 45 percent of the population.
Yet on Friday, Newsom declined to end California’s state of emergency order, saying, “This disease has not been extinguished. It’s not vanished. It’s not taking the summer months off.”
To Melendez and other California Republican leaders, Newsom is overstepping his bounds by continuing to centralize emergency powers when there is little emergency left to manage. They note the coronavirus likely isn’t going to “vanish” or be “extinguished” any time soon, and Newsom hasn’t said what metrics he’s using to determine when the state of emergency should end.
Newsom’s office told the Los Angeles Times that the governor would end the state of emergency “once conditions no longer warrant an emergency response.”
“He has decided that he is in complete control, and I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Melendez said of Newsom, who is facing a likely recall election this fall. “He has a co-equal branch of government right here in the building that he’s completely ignoring. And I didn’t get elected, and the rest of the members didn’t get elected, to subordinate ourselves to the governor.”
California is not alone in keeping its state of emergency in place. In fact, most states – even Republican-led states such as Florida and South Dakota – still are operating under states of emergency, though many are set to expire in the coming days or weeks. Some red-state governors, including Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, Mike Dunleavy of Alaska, Doug Burgum of North Dakota, and Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma have rescinded their emergency declarations.
Melendez said she doesn’t suspect the Biden administration would cut California off from further federal coronavirus aid if the state ended its state of emergency.
California, which experienced some of the nation’s strictest coronavirus-related restrictions, is finally slated to fully reopen its economy on June 15.
“If Newsom believes the state is safe enough to reopen, then it’s safe for people to be able to make decisions for themselves without his arbitrary and capricious rules,” state senate Republican Scott Wilk said in a statement last week.
Among the executive orders Newsom has made with his emergency powers: He imposed statewide shutdowns of non-essential businesses, created strict criteria for local reopening plans, engaged in unchecked spending from the state’s Disaster Response-Emergency Operations Account, and required mail ballots be sent to all registered voters statewide.
Republican candidates for governor also have called on Newsom to end the state of emergency.
John Cox, a businessman who lost to Newsom in 2018, told National Review that Newsom is engaged in a “power grab” that’s allowed him to impose business mandates and approve no-bid contracts without any input from the legislature.
“Our system is supposed to operate with checks and balances,” he said.
Cox accused Newsom of using the virus to “scare the bejeezus” out of people. But by doing so, he said, Newsom has painted himself into a corner when it comes to ending the emergency.
“I think that is making it tough from the standpoint of him being able to say, well now we can relinquish the reins a little bit,” Cox said.
Caitlyn Jenner, who is running in the recall election, said in a statement to Fox News that Newsom “acts like a dictator and continues to keep Californians under his rule with his draconian lockdown.”
Kevin Faulconer, the former San Diego mayor who also is running to oust Newsom, said on Twitter that Newsom “is showing his true colors” and “wants to retain power at any cost.”
Gavin Newsom is showing his true colors. He wants to retain power at any cost, even after he committed to reopening the state. Now his team is desperate to walk back his admission that he will hold on to emergency powers even after the emergency is over. This isn’t leadership. https://t.co/9RwOXr70TM
— Kevin Faulconer (@Kevin_Faulconer) June 4, 2021
Health authorities have warned that the U.S. could face another surge of coronavirus cases if too few people get vaccinated this summer. Melendez said that’s not enough to justify keeping the state of emergency in place.
“There’s always going to be something else lurking around the corner as a reason for them to continue to hold these powers,” she said. “I think it’s high time the governor give up these powers and work with the legislature.”