Abstract
As the United States entered 2021, almost all fifty states were still operating under a state of emergency due to COVID-19 more than nine months later. Governors using emergency powers provided to them under their respective emergency disaster statutes and state constitutions continued to govern their state by executive order. These executive orders have had significant impacts on citizens’ everyday lives including stay-at-home orders, limits on non-essential gatherings, non-essential business closures and moratoriums on evictions. And these emergency orders have been opposed at almost every turn from citizens gathering in public protest shouting “Liberate Michigan,” to constitutional legal challenges to these orders. Even with three promising vaccines receiving emergency authorization at the time of this article’s submission, it will be months or longer before life returns to normal. Therefore, it becomes incumbent to ask the question whether governors should continue to wield this emergency power or whether state legislatures and/or state agencies should take on more responsibility. In answer to this question, this article concludes that governors should use executive orders in some measure as long as COVID-19 is being transmitted in their communities but not for all areas. Since COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease and is difficult to contain, governors need to be able to quickly and nimbly issue orders to curb transmission as long as there is a reasonable check on their power to do so. However, state legislatures and/or state agencies should enact emergency statutes or regulations following the more formal rule making process in areas that do not require immediate action such as requiring facial coverings in public spaces. This article draws its conclusion by examining three key areas. First, most governors have a meaningful check on their emergency powers from both the judiciary and the state legislature. Second, governors and litigants can learn from prior cases to ensure executive orders do not single out a group or unnecessarily burden another. Third, since some states have had success in enacting emergency regulations, statutes or guidelines concerning COVID-19, more states should follow suit.
Recommended Citation
Kelly J. Deere,
Governing by Executive Order During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Preliminary Observations Concerning the Proper Balance Between Executive Orders and More Formal Rule Making,
86 Mo. L. Rev.
(2021)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol86/iss3/5