CLICK TO HEAR JACK HALL’S INTERVIEW WITH REP. LAFAVE
A petition drive to repeal a Michigan emergency powers law is about to get underway.
The Board of State Canvassers has unanimously approved language for a petition from Unlock Michigan that seeks to repeal the Emergency Powers of Governor Act of 1945.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer has invoked the act to repeatedly renew Michigan’s state of emergency related to the coronavirus pandemic without legislative approval, which has prompted criticism and a lawsuit from the Republican-led legislature. Unlock Michigan will need to collect over 340-thousand valid signatures in 180 days to get the proposal before the legislature, and the group says it will start collecting signatures in the next few days.
If the signatures are certified and the legislature passes the citizen’s initiative, then the governor cannot veto it. If the legislature declined to take it up, it would go on the November 2022 ballot.
Upper Peninsula state representative Beau LaFave (R-Iron Mountain) tells the Radio Results Network that he supports the petition, which he calls the first step toward restoring the separation of powers and a system of governmental checks and balances in Michigan.
“No governor, of either party, or president, is a big fan of checks and balances on their power,” LaFave said. “But that’s how our republic and how our democracy works. Pandemic or not, the people of the Upper Peninsula and the State of Michigan deserve one representative and one senator. The problem with the governor ignoring the legislature is that no one in the Upper Peninsula has had a representative or senator since March. That is not the way our country is supposed to work.”
The legislature allowed the governor to extend her emergency declaration through April under a 1976 law that allows 28 days of emergency, with legislative approval. When the legislature said “no” to another extension, Whitmer extended it anyway, citing a 1945 law that does not place time limits on a governor’s ability to declare emergencies.
That’s the law that the petition drive is trying to repeal. The governor, who has issued more than 130 executive orders during the pandemic, says it’s been necessary to save lives. She said in a recent press conference that efforts to strip her of those powers are “irresponsible, dangerous, and foolish”.
“Governor Whitmer would like there to not be a legislature,” LaFave told RRN News. “When she was in the legislature, she was one of the most ardent opponents to the 1945 law, if any of her Republican governors had used it to the fullest extent that she has. But now that she has the power, of course she doesn’t like the legislature.”
LaFave said that right now, there is nothing to stop a governor from taking office on January 1st, and the next day, issuing emergency declarations and keeping them in place for that governor’s entire four years, without any input from the house or senate.
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