{"id":79227,"date":"2022-03-26T20:50:16","date_gmt":"2022-03-27T01:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=79227"},"modified":"2022-03-26T20:50:16","modified_gmt":"2022-03-27T01:50:16","slug":"79227","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=79227","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Lasting COVID legacy: a nation of rulers, not laws<\/a><\/p>\n

SACRAMENTO \u2013 \u201cThe United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced,\u201d noted the late musician and satirist Frank Zappa. I often think of that snarky comment as I write about the sausage-making process in city councils, state legislatures and the federal government. Did I mention that California\u2019s state government has 518 agencies, boards and commissions?<\/p>\n

Our system of checks, balances, more checks, additional balances, impact reports, legal challenges, voter initiatives, regulatory rulemakings and administrative hearings frustrates people who want to \u201cget something done.\u201d Americans spent $14 billion on the 2020 election cycle to influence political outcomes \u2013 and that was just for the presidential and congressional races.<\/p>\n

I once ran a modest state bill to reduce the insanely onerous licensing regulations for people who shampoo hair at salons. After months of hearings and debate, the Assembly defeated it for going too far. That explains the public\u2019s desire to cut through the red tape and, as Arnold Schwarzenegger once promised, \u201cblow up the boxes\u201d of government.<\/p>\n

Yet after COVID-19, it\u2019s obvious our democratic system of lawmaking is, as Winston Churchill put it, \u201cthe worst form of government, except for all the others.\u201d Given the choice between a system resembling a Rube Goldberg cartoon (with his bizarre and overly complex contraptions designed to complete simple tasks) and one that\u2019s streamlined and efficient, I\u2019ll take Goldberg\u2019s vision any day.<\/p>\n

As we saw throughout the country but in California in particular, governors were happy to dispense with the usual checks and balances and impose rules by executive order and fiat. Some initial rules were defensible during a public-health crisis, but it wasn\u2019t long before elected officials operated like czars \u2013 imposing illogical and contradictory restrictions that made no rhyme or reason.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

They kept moving the goalposts. One day, counties were on lockdown based on such and such infection rates, but the next day standards changed. In September 2020, for instance, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a re-opening blueprint based on COVID cases per 100,000 population, but then he refused to let counties that met the standard to loosen up their rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cA week after announcing the new blueprint, Newsom announced that the state would actually adjust those raw numbers using an algorithm based on testing rates,\u201d according to an NPR report. \u201cEach county\u2019s case rate gets bumped up or down depending on how their testing rates compare to other counties.\u201d Californians got the sneaking suspicion we simply were subject to the whims of the king.<\/p>\n

I viewed the pandemic as serious, but it became obvious that many rules the governor imposed had nothing to do with containing the virus. Governors (and not just Newsom) and federal regulators followed the Rahm Emanuel school of thought (\u201cNever allow a good crisis to go to waste\u201d) \u2013 and used the pandemic to impose policies they always supported but could never pass via the usual channels.<\/p>\n

\u201cNewsom has used his executive authority to shut down businesses, move local elections to vote-by-mail, accelerate spending on homeless shelters, alter court proceedings and provide benefits for essential workers,\u201d according to an April 2020 Politico report appropriately headlined, \u201cNewsom executive orders test constitutional bounds \u2013 and legislative goodwill.\u201d<\/p>\n

The previous month, Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, published a 138-page document detailing the 400 laws the governor had unilaterally changed following his State of Emergency declaration. \u201cOur founders had good reasons for rejecting autocratic models of government in favor of separation of powers, checks and balances, and the rule of law \u2013 all of which Gavin Newsom has discarded,\u201d Kiley wrote.<\/p>\n

Kiley and Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, challenged this in court, arguing the 1970 California Emergency Services Act does not give the governor authority to \u201clegislate by unilaterally amending existing statutory law.\u201d The specific issue centered on the governor\u2019s decision to send vote-by-mail ballots to all of the state\u2019s voters \u2013 a good idea, in my view, but one that should have taken place by normal legislative action.<\/p>\n

The Sutter County court sided with the Assembly members, although the decision didn\u2019t affect the election because the Legislature approved vote-by-mail after Newsom\u2019s order. That in itself proved that such executive actions often were inappropriate. There was plenty of time to pass the measure correctly, but Newsom preferred to impose the measure with a stroke of his pen.
\nAn appeals court sided with the governor and found the emergency act gave him vast authority \u2013 including the \u201cpolice power\u201d to create new law. The California Supreme Court let the appeals court decision stand, meaning that in any declared emergency the governor can do whatever he deems appropriate without serious checks or balances.<\/p>\n

Last month, Newsom mercifully lifted the vast majority of edicts and orders \u2013 but the precedent has been set for future emergencies. There are no real limits on executive power. Life is returning to normal after two long years, but I might never again complain about our convoluted democratic process.<\/p>\n

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lasting COVID legacy: a nation of rulers, not laws SACRAMENTO \u2013 \u201cThe United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced,\u201d noted the late musician and satirist Frank Zappa. I often think of that snarky comment as I write about the sausage-making process in city councils, state legislatures and the federal government. … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,24,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goobermint","category-rights","category-scratch-a-lib-find-a-tyrant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79228,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79227\/revisions\/79228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}