William Lloyd 'No' to amendments; 'yes' to vaccinations

May 8—Primary election voters should reject the two proposed amendments to the state constitution aimed at limiting the governor's power to respond to disasters.

It would be short-sighted to treat these amendments as a referendum on the mask mandates, school closings and business restrictions imposed by Gov. Tom Wolf to slow the spread of COVID-19.

First, because those rules are already being eased, approving the amendments would be too late to have much practical effect.

Second, approval could negatively impact the ability of future governors to address other disasters (including those involving storms, terrorism and environmental accidents).

Proponents of the constitutional amendments are correct that current law undermines the principle of checks and balances by potentially cutting elected legislators out of the decision-making process. Unfortunately, the proposed amendments go too far in the other direction.

Current law allows the governor to issue a disaster declaration for 90 days and to renew it as often as he or she deems necessary. The first proposed constitutional amendment would automatically terminate a governor's disaster declaration after 21 days and renew it only with the legislature's consent.

The constitution presently empowers the governor to veto an attempt by the legislature to terminate a disaster declaration, thereby requiring a two-thirds vote in both the state Senate and state House of Representatives to end the declaration. By eliminating the governor's veto power, the second proposed amendment would allow a simple majority of each house to terminate the disaster declaration.

In March 2020, former President Donald Trump declared the coronavirus pandemic to be a national emergency. Citing a forecast that COVID could claim two million American lives, Trump urged us to work from home whenever possible; shift schools to online instruction in areas where there was significant infection; avoid indoor dining, discretionary travel, nonessential shopping trips and sizable social gatherings; and wash our hands frequently. The partial lockdowns imposed by Wolf and most other governors were generally consistent with Trump's recommendations.

In April 2020, Trump released a schedule (developed by his own experts) for gradually relaxing the lockdowns if and when states achieved a sustained decline in COVID infections, hospitalizations and deaths. However, almost immediately, the president began pressuring governors to reopen their states without waiting for the coronavirus to recede.

Following the phased reopening recommended by Trump's experts might have saved even more lives, but the willingness of Wolf and many other governors to resist Trump's pressure and act cautiously should at least hold the ultimate U.S. death toll to less than one-third of the two million originally feared.

Nevertheless, in the opinion of many small business owners and their employees, Pennsylvania's restrictions were not uniform and gave exceptions to political favorites while denying them to everyone else. Significantly, however, the proposed constitutional amendments might actually have made the situation worse.

If those amendments had been in effect in March 2020, Wolf would presumably have issued the same disaster declaration and initially imposed the same restrictions. However, because of constituent pressure, legislators would have insisted on exceptions as their price for allowing an extension of the disaster declaration beyond 21 days.

The negotiations over an extension would have been similar to the brinksmanship that characterizes the annual state budget debate.

The difference is that Republicans would have had an extraordinary advantage because they controlled both houses of the Legislature and the governor would not have had veto power.

Consequently, the choice for the governor would have been between having no extension at all or agreeing to exceptions dictated by the loudest voices and the biggest campaign contributors, regardless of the public health consequences.

Fortunately, because of Trump's early commitment to vaccine development and President Joe Biden's concentration on accelerating the pace of vaccinations, we are beginning to return to "normal."

However, the weekly number of new COVID cases in the U.S. is still about 1.7 times what it was one year ago. Furthermore, if too many of us decline the vaccine, COVID variants could take root and send both the number of new cases and the economy in the wrong direction.

In the final analysis, the total reopening of restaurants, bars, motels, tourist attractions and retail stores will depend on customers' confidence that patronizing those businesses will not increase the risk of contracting COVID.

The key to building that confidence is more vaccinations, not constitutional amendments.

Trump and Biden have urged everyone to get vaccinated. The most sure-fire way to save lives and end the remaining restrictions on our liberties is to take that advice.

William Lloyd of Somerset represented Somerset County in the state House of Representatives (1981-1998) and served as the state's Small Business Advocate (November 2003-October 2011). He writes a monthly column for The Tribune-Democrat.