GOP puts pandemic powers to ballot test

Voters to decide whether to limit governor’s ability to declare disasters

HARRISBURG -- Republican lawmakers across the country have tried to roll back the emergency powers that governors wielded during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they ordered businesses shut, mask-wearing in public and students home for distance learning.

Pennsylvania's Legislature is now taking its case to the ballot.

In the first vote of its kind since the coronavirus outbreak, voters statewide will decide twin constitutional amendments that would give lawmakers much more power over disaster declarations, to apply whether the emergency is another pandemic or natural disaster.

The questions were placed on Tuesday's primary ballot by the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has had a long-running feud with the state's Democratic governor over his emergency actions during the pandemic.

"This is the first opportunity we actually have something tangible, where more than just a handful of sampled people will be able to have an input," said Jonathon Hauenschild, an attorney at the American Legislative Exchange Council, an association of conservative lawmakers and businesses.

For Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania, asking voters to change the constitution is the only way they have of reeling in the authority of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. He has veto power, and Republicans don't have a large enough majority to override his actions.

Democratic lawmakers have largely stuck with Wolf, and courts rejected attempts to end the governor's disaster declaration or lift his orders.

The amendments on Tues­­­­­­­­­day's ballot would cause such a significant erosion of executive authority that Wolf and his emergency disaster director have called it reckless and a threat to a functioning society.

"Both of these questions undermine our democracy," Wolf said Wednesday during a news conference at a fire station in suburban Harrisburg. "They take away our ability to respond to emergencies."

The questions ask voters to end a governor's emergency disaster declaration after 21 days and to give lawmakers the unilateral authority to extend or end it with a majority vote.

Current law allows a governor to issue an emergency declaration for up to 90 days and extend it without limit. The constitution requires a two-thirds majority vote by lawmakers to end the declaration.

The proposals emerged from the Republican-controlled Legislature last summer, amid deep frustration over Wolf extending broad shutdowns of business activity beyond a few weeks, as Pennsylvania endured the first of what would become three spikes in COVID-19 cases. More than 26,000 Pennsylvanians have succumbed to the virus, according to state figures.

"We want to give any governor time to declare a disaster emergency and get started with what needs to be started with. And after 21 days, it doesn't mean a state of emergency is going to end. It just means the Legislature has a seat at the table to work with him," said Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, who authored the legislation.