California Democrats shoot down GOP bid to end Gavin Newsom’s COVID emergency powers
California lawmakers won’t end Gov. Gavin Newsom’s two-year-old COVID-19 state of emergency, despite the objections of Republicans who say it gives him too much power.
The Senate Governmental Organization Committee on Tuesday rejected a resolution by Sen. Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, that would have terminated Newsom’s emergency declaration from March 2020.
Eight Democrats on the committee voted against the resolution while four Republicans voted for it. A number of senators abstained from the vote.
Melendez introduced the resolution in December 2020, but Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins didn’t grant it a hearing until Feb. 17. That was the same day Newsom introduced his latest COVID-19 response, which treats the virus as if it is here to stay in some form.
The COVID emergency declaration allows Newsom to access federal funding and to override state laws while carrying out the state’s pandemic response. However, Melendez and other Republican say continuing the emergency over a long period of time is unnecessary and gives the governor too much power.
Newsom on Feb. 25 announced he’d end or let expire a series of executive orders and provisions he’s issued during the pandemic emergency, although he maintained he needs to keep the overall declaration in place to implement his latest plan.
Hospitals, firefighters against ending COVID emergency
Melendez on Tuesday said it’s time for local governments to take the lead on the COVID response “without a shotgun approach of a statewide emergency.”
“The governor has slowly began to peel back mandates, indicating that the need for his emergency powers is no longer necessary,” Melendez said. “If California is truly in a better place to handle future events like COVID, than it should allow emergency assistance to be determined at the local level, just like we do for every other emergency.”
But representatives from the California Hospital Association and California Professional Firefighters both urged the committee to keep the emergency declaration in place, as did the California State Association of Counties, Urban Counties of California and the mayors of Oakland and Los Angeles.
“This is not the time for the Legislature to get involved in an emergency as it is winding down,” said Brian Rice, president of California Professional Firefighters. “This is a virus that mutates and changes. Our emergency services system is still very impacted, and the flexibility we get off of the executive orders, not only is appropriate, but needs to remain in place.”
Kathryn Austin Scott of the California Hospital Association said Newsom’s orders have created additional space to treat patients and allowed medical professionals from other states to help offset a worker shortage.
“If this waiver were to be ended today, we would lose those thousands of workers and that space overnight,” Scott said. “Patients would be seeing longer wait times, potentially forcing them to wait on care, and unfortunately would result in worse patient outcomes.”
Republicans continue to oppose COVID emergency
Republican senators supported Melendez’s resolution and decried what they perceive as Newsom’s “one-man rule.”
Republican Senate Leader Scott Wilk of Santa Clarita even alluded to the fictional Festivus holiday from the TV show “Seinfeld,” which promotes an “airing of grievances.”
“I really enjoyed the debate today, because if today was Festivus, I could I could list the governor’s missteps, his overreach and his secret bills, and I could catalog them all for you,” Wilk said.
Wilk said the Legislature’s decision to quickly pass a bill overruling a California Supreme Court decision that would have limited enrollment at UC Berkeley is an example of “restoring the constitutional balance between the three branches of government.” Ending the emergency declaration would be another example of doing that, he said.
Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, said he could see himself “supporting a significantly limited version of the bill, but certainly not in the form as it’s been presented today.”
When should COVID emergency end?
Allen, who ultimately abstained from voting, asked witnesses if they could share how the end of the emergency declaration would impact them and when they think it should be terminated. The senator said he does “think that it’s important that this be ended at some point.”
Scott said hospitals could lose some of their federal emergency funding, and the Legislature would need to quickly pass measures to help them maintain the systems they need to care for patients.
“We are seeing a lot of patients come in sicker because they delayed care,” Scott said. “So while the numbers might be going down, our hospitals and EMS systems are highly impacted because patients waited longer to get their care and are coming in sicker.”
Rice said he didn’t think he was qualified to say when the state of emergency should end, although he doesn’t think emergency responders are ready for that now.
Committee Chairman Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, said Newsom “got it right” and “continues to get it right” with his COVID response.
“I’m happy to see case rates and hospitalizations at low numbers, and we return to the normalization of life,” Dodd said. “However, the existing state of emergency proclaimed by the governor is absolutely important to ensure that the state can quickly and efficiently continue to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and be prepared for possible future variants and surges.”
This story was originally published March 15, 2022 at 2:30 PM.