Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu have something in common. An unhealthy attachment to emergency powers.
Related: Guilty Until Proven Innocent: The Time Has Come to Put an End to the NH Gun Line
DeWine vetoed another bill to claw that power back, but the Ohio State Senate overrode a DeWine Veto. He’s DeWhining like a little girl.
“Senate Bill 22 jeopardizes the safety of every Ohioan. It goes well beyond the issues that have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said DeWine. “SB 22 strikes at the heart of local health departments’ ability to move quickly to protect the public from the most serious emergencies Ohio could face.”
Would it?
A transparent assessment of the “public health” damage these emergency powers create would likely tip the scales heavily in the Legislatures favor. Absent that, there’s this; 99.7% of people on average survive the “virus.” We can’t say for certain if that many jobs, businesses, marriages, families, or lives survived the punishing political over-reaction.
My point is that the legislature should get on with completing the override and put those checks and balances in place. What checks? What are these draconian measures that Mr. ‘DeWhine’ claims will strike at local health departments’ tyranny ability to move quickly?
Channel 2 Dayton has a list of the Legislature’s Church Door demands.
- Permits the General Assembly to rescind orders and rules issued by the governor or Ohio Department of Health (ODH)
- Establishes the Ohio Health Oversight and Advisory Committee and grants the committee the power to rescind certain orders and rules issued by the governor and ODH
- Limits the duration of a public health state of emergency, unless extended by the General Assembly
- During a public health state of emergency requires the governor and ODH to report to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives any actions taken in response to the emergency.
- Subjects existing orders and rules issued by the Governor or ODH to review and rescission by the General Assembly and the Committee
Wait a minute.
It looks to me like Public Health Officials and the Governor can issue whatever emergency or public health orders they please, just not without oversight.
DeWhiiiiiiiine!
SB 22 would empower the legislature to revoke, rescind, or overturn orders after they’d been imposed should they gasp! violate constitutionally protected rights, become unnecessary, or gasp again! prove to do more harm than good.
A check and a balance.
Any good Republican would openly embrace such oversight, but ‘DeWhine’ (like Chris Flununu) has abandoned those ideas in favor of others.
I’m not sure how the votes look in Ohio. When it comes to keeping the power to close businesses, arbitrarily fine people, even search their property without a warrant, untouched by any new check or balance, NH, the Democrats side overwhelmingly with NH’s “Republican” Governor.
The power to not just confine people “for their own good” but to decide what that good is, where, when, and for how long?
Mike DeWine should stop DeWhining and start acting like a member of the party more frequently elected to protect people from these sorts of abuses instead of growing comfortable as their mule.
