Commentary: The Longevity of the COVID Emergency

Two years after COVID burst on the American scene, leading to lockdowns, school closures, mask and vaccine mandates, and trillions of dollars in emergency government spending, the question on many minds is: When will the emergency end?

The answer to that question is not an easy one. An examination of past emergencies does not resolve it. Rather, it is clear that emergency situations, including this one, may be understood through various lenses, yielding different perspectives on what the endpoint will be.

Take, by way of comparison, World War II, an emergency that had at least four distinct endings because it had at least four distinct faces:

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Gov. Walz to Extend Emergency Powers for 15th Time Monday

Gov. Tim Walz

Gov. Tim Walz plans to extend his emergency powers for another 30 days on Monday, making it the 15th month in a row that the peacetime emergency has been extended.

A Minnesota statute says that a governor who declares a peacetime emergency may have emergency powers for only five days, after which he must ask his Executive Council to extend his powers for an additional 30 days.

Walz has requested that his powers be extended 15 times since first declaring the peacetime emergency in March of 2020, and thus has had emergency powers for over 450 days.

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Proposed Legislation Gives School Boards Decision-Making Authority Over School Closures During Public Emergencies

A bill filed Monday will give Tennessee school boards the ultimate decision-making authority about whether their schools should be open or closed during a public emergency. 

The filing of the legislation was accompanied by an announcement from the bill’s sponsors, Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) and Representative Kevin Vaughan (R-Collierville).

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Governor Mike DeWine Declares a State of Emergency 20 Ohio Counties

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine formally called for a state of emergency Thursday in counties across Ohio. The decision was made in response to excessive rainfall that resulted in severe flooding in 20 separate counties. According to the Emergency Proclamation, from Feb. 5th to Feb. 13th “Severe storms and excessive rainfall resulting in localized flooding impacts created dangerous and damaging conditions affecting the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Ohio.” As a result, a state of emergency has been declared in the following counties: Adams, Athens, Brown, Gallia, Guernsey, Hocking, Jackson, Jefferson, Lawrence, Meigs, Monroe, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble, Perry, Pike, Ross, Scioto, Vinton, and Washington. This week “FEMA and the Emergency Management Agency will be meeting with county and township officials” will convene to organize an action plan to address the dangerous conditions. The situation is compounded by the fact that much of these areas were already heavily saturated with rainfall. For 17 of these counties, this is the second year in a row that a state of emergency was declared as a result of severe flooding dues to excessive rainfall. In February of 2018, then-Ohio Governor John Kasich declared a state of emergency after storms caused the Ohio river to crest at a…

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Commentary: It’s Time for Texas to Declare an Emergency, Too

by Rick Manning   Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) got it 100 percent correct when in response to President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the southern border he suggested that the state of Texas “should also consider a similar declaration” of national emergency due to the illegal immigration invasion in a statement released on Friday, Feb. 15, 2019. In fact, a declaration by the Texas legislature of an emergency based upon what Gohmert terms “a blatant invasion happening at our border” would trigger Constitutional remedies for the situation through a little-known portion of the U.S. Constitution. Article 4, Section 4 reads, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.” Now that the President has declared a state of emergency at the border, it would be the ideal time for the state of Texas to join in that declaration. In doing so, they would compel the President to provide critical assistance to the state under the Constitution and end obstructionist objections to taking necessary…

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