Pennsylvanians Voted To Limit Their Governor’s Emergency Powers – By Eric Boehm (Reason) / May 19 2021
Voters in Pittsburgh banned no-knock police raids and solitary confinement too.
In the first political test of voters’ attitudes towards pandemic lockdowns, Pennsylvanians voted Tuesday to curtail unilateral executive power over emergency declarations.
By slim margins, voters approved a pair of proposed constitutional amendments that took aim at Gov. Tom Wolf’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which included several broad orders limiting public gatherings and economic activity during the past year. Both amendments will transfer significant power from the executive branch to the state legislature.
The first proposed amendment would allow the state legislature to end a governor’s emergency declaration with a simple majority vote—rather than the two-thirds vote currently required. The second would automatically end an emergency declaration after 21 days unless the state legislature votes to extend it. Under current law, an emergency declaration lasts for 90 days and the governor can extend one indefinitely.
With slightly more than 1 million votes counted in both contests as of Wednesday morning, when the Associated Press called the races, both proposed amendments were supported by about 53 percent of voters.
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