State lawmakers are presenting bills that would make it harder for governors and other officials to implement public-health measures, like mask mandates, without going through the legislature during the next health emergency.
The COVID-19 outbreak has given governors powers that many in the country never knew they had. With the stroke of a pen, they have been able to invoke emergency orders to close nonessential businesses, places of worship, and nearly every sector of private business.
The Trends Journal has reported extensively on this power struggle within states. (See our 13 October article, “U.S. COVID CASES UP, GOVERNORS WANT TO LOCKDOWN” and our 21 July article, “GOVERNORS RULE, RIGHTS DON’T MATTER.”)
The House of Representatives in North Dakota introduced legislation that would ban mask mandates imposed by elected officials, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The bill was quickly vetoed by Gov. Doug Burgum. He said the bill is dangerous because it pulls an important “emergency tool from the emergency tool kit that may be needed to help our state save lives and nimbly navigate future pandemics and their unknowable challenges.”
The House overrode the veto, and the bill was introduced in the state Senate, the report said.
The paper reported that lawmakers have also made a stand in Ohio and weakened the governor’s powers. On 9 March, the Trends Journal published the article, “CUOMO GETS STRIPPED, BUT NOT THE WAY HE WANTED,” which reported on the New York State Senate’s move to prevent Cuomo from issuing new coronavirus-related emergency orders.
TRENDPOST: With more Americans suffering from mask fatigue, the number of states still mandating face masks dropped from 36 to 28 over the past two months.
It should be noted that the state of Michigan, whose Governor issued among the strictest lockdown measures in the U.S., has just registered more COVID cases in the past two weeks than Texas and California. And Texas has been open for business-as-usual for almost two months. Yet, the fact that there are no governor-ordered mask mandates, social distancing requirements, and vaccine orders from the Lone Star State – and the COVID death and infection rates keep dropping – is barely reported by the mainstream news.
TREND FORECAST: Should more lockdown orders be imposed next year when “health officials,” Presstitutes, and politicians start selling the “Next COVID Wave,” there will be great resistance from a near majority of the general public and small businesses to have to follow their orders.
We maintain our forecast for the emergence of new anti-vax, anti-tax and anti-establishment parties.
