After 975 Days, Washington's Governor Will Finally Relinquish His Emergency Pandemic Powers
Gov. Jay Inslee says Washington state's COVID-19 emergency will finally come to an end on October 31.
For most Americans, COVID-19 long ago stopped being an immediate crisis and has become little more than a dull annoyance, a mundane part of everyday life to be ignored when possible and dealt with when necessary.
In Washington state, however, the pandemic will continue to be a literal emergency—for at least another seven weeks.
Gov. Jay Inslee announced Thursday that he will end the state's COVID emergency declarations on October 31—a mere 975 days after the first emergency order was implemented on February 29, 2020. In the announcement, Inslee conceded that "we've come a long way in the past two years in developing the tools that allow us to adapt and live with COVID-19," and admitted that the world has entered a new "era" of dealing with the disease.
Over the past two-and-a-half years, few governors have exercised as much broad, unchecked power over schools, the economy, and individuals' decisions as Inslee. According to the Seattle Times, the governor issued 85 emergency orders during the pandemic, 23 of which are still in effect. Inslee's word was law when it came to everything from shutting down schools to banning evictions, from mandating masks in various settings to mandating vaccines for certain professions, and from ordering businesses to close to deciding when they could reopen.
And it's probably safe to say that no governor has had a more self-aggrandizing perception of his emergency powers. "There is only one person in the state of Washington who has the capability to save those lives right now, and it happens to be the governor of the state of Washington," Inslee told a local TV station during an interview in October 2021—more than 18 months into the emergency and well after vaccines were readily available to all who wanted them.
Asked by the interviewer whether legislators should play a larger role in making policies like vaccine mandates, Inslee said it wasn't possible "because we need to act right now." Asked when the crisis might be deemed to have passed, at least to the extent that would allow lawmakers into the process, Inslee said he couldn't be sure "because there are so many metrics to look at."
Indeed, governing is a complex process. And there are situations where it is necessary to have one person exercise unilateral authority because an emergency does not permit time for democratic deliberations. But while that argument may have held water during the spring of 2020, it certainly did not in October 2021—to say nothing of October 2022. An emergency that lasts for 900-plus days is not, by definition, an emergency.
As I wrote in the February issue of Reason, broad and ill-defined emergency powers laws exist in most states but, until the COVID-19 pandemic, they were mostly used for acute emergencies like severe storms, earthquakes, bridge collapses, terrorist attacks, and the like. Those are emergencies in the true sense of the term: limited events for which it makes sense to short-circuit the usual governing process so an immediate response can be directed by the chief executive.
"Certainly, while initial executive response to emergencies should be robust and unhindered by the burden of administrative or legislative oversight, this should not be the case over a longer period of time," wrote state Judge Bernard Veljacic in an opinion dissenting with the state of Washington's Court of Appeals' decision in August to uphold Inslee's indoor mask mandate. "Of course, in the early days of an emergency, Washingtonians would suffer if required to wait on the executive to set a legislative session, assemble the necessary quorum, and oversee a vote on a course of action. But at some point, over the long term, an emergency grows less emergent. After all, time allows for the opportunity to reflect. That same opportunity should include legislative review."
But the Democrat-controlled state Legislature showed little interest in reining in Inslee, even as most other states ended emergency orders and some rolled back the statutes allowing governors to seize such broad powers in the first place.
Jason Mercier, director of the Center for Government Reform at the Washington Policy Center, a free market nonprofit based in Seattle, says the Legislature should pass a law that would have emergency declarations expire after 30 days unless lawmakers vote to continue them.
"Requiring affirmative legislative approval after a set point in time removes not a single tool from the Governor's toolbox," Mercier wrote in an email to Reason. "Whether or not you agree or disagree with every decision the Governor has made for the last 900-plus days, the fact remains these decisions with vast impact on individuals and businesses were made behind closed doors in the executive branch."
In fairness, Washington state is not the last place where pandemic emergency powers are being wielded. According to the National Academy for State Health Policy, there are 13 other states where emergency declarations are still in force. Kansas' emergency order is not set to end until January 2023, while California's is open-ended and will continue until Gov. Gavin Newsom (or a successor) decides to end it.
In light of that, Inslee deserves a small bit of credit for voluntarily relinquishing his pandemic-era powers.
But that he held onto them for so long demonstrates some serious problems. It's an indictment of Inslee's sense of judgment and leadership skills, and it should be a warning to lawmakers that the laws governing Washington state's emergency executive powers need pruning.
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That’s because Joe Biden delivered the vaccine and shut down the virus like he promised.
#LibertariansForBiden
You mean the ineffective Trump arm poison.
He rolled it out too fast causing even more deaths!
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Finally a libertarian governor.
You mean a petty tyrant.
There is absolutely zero medial justification to maintain the state of emergency one day longer.
And if there were, there in NO medical justification to say that on Nov. 1 there is no more emergency.
This is baldly partisan politics.
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I only skimmed the article but missing is the self aggrandizing quote from inslee that “we know we saved tens of thousands of lives with our policies” of lockdowns, school closings, mask and vaccine mandates. (State workers were fired for refusing the jab.)
Tens of thousands? I’d like to see his math on that. Fuck inslee.
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In a shock to nobody who cab read a study (doesn’t include white Mike, sarc, jfree, mike), CDC admits their data on myocarditis and vaccines was lower than reality between 3-5x actual numbers. The same thing those of us who can read data stated the last 2 years.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/09/cdc-admits-post-vaccine-myocarditis-concerns-that-were-labeled-covid-misinformation-are-legit/
The CDC lied and the usual suspects here and silicon valley called those pointing out correct data as spreading misinformation.
The CDC lied, and people died.
Mostly kids though. Got to save 85 year old gramps.
Nah, they already killed the elderly in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and any other state that copied Andrew Cuomo.
“Got to save 85 year old gramps.”
What an asshole comment and a non sequitur.
Cite?
Cite to what??
Do your own work using Our World in Data’s state-by-state breakdown for the US.
https://github.com/owid/covid-19-data/tree/master/public/data
Looking at 2021’s ‘covid misinformation’, the ‘experts’ were a generous 1-for-8.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/government-is-a-relentless-freedom
——————
In a survey released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, respondents were asked about eight different misconceptions about the pandemic, ranging from “The government is exaggerating the number of COVID-19 deaths” to “The COVID-19 vaccines can change your DNA.” The survey found that 78 percent of Americans either believe or aren’t sure about at least one of the statements. However, the numbers varied greatly depending on party affiliation, vaccination status and source of news.
The other COVID-19 statements presented by Kaiser — in the order of whether people believed or were unsure about them — were “Pregnant women should not get the COVID-19 vaccine,” “Deaths due to the COVID-19 vaccine are being intentionally hidden by the government,” “The COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to cause infertility,” “Ivermectin is a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19,” “You can get COVID-19 from the vaccine” and “The COVID-19 vaccines contain a microchip.”
Microchips in the vaccine. Still a tenet of faith among the True(tm) Trumpistas.
LOL way to zoom in on the one thing they got right, while STILL being condescending. Never change.
Cite? Difficulty. No BlueAnon sources.
When did Trump say there were microchips in the vaccine? If he said it, I could understand why you would think “trumpistas” would also think that, but I don’t recall him ever making that claim.
There is no question COVID deaths are exaggerated. None. If one had COVID or tested positive for COVID (definitely not the same) and one died, one was reported as dying of COVID. This is obviously a false conclusion.
An example was printed (here?) of a painter who fell off a ladder, was tested on hospitalization for COVID (positive), and died the same day… cause of death? COVID.
The behavior could be just silliness, but it was also fiscally encouraged. The each COVID patients treated won hospital compensation from the Government. This directly incentivized exaggeration. How anyone can think otherwise is the real question.
Indeed. Inside the article I posted the video of Brix saying the exact same thing, extremely early in the panic.
Saw a Death Certificate stating that the cause of death was “Traumatic Head Injury w/COVID.
When my Nephew passed away, the Local Hospital wanted to call it COVID. He had Spina Bifida. The Hospital that had treated him since he was a baby, requested that they be allowed to do an autopsy so that they could learn from him to help others. The autopsy showed that his shunt had failed allowing pressure to build up, pushing his brain down on to his brain stem causing his death. His regular checkups had been cancelled because of our Governor calling them non essential. I live in Pennsylvania.
So you don’t link to the study. Or the CDC’s interpretation of it. Or a politically neutral but actual science/medicine-literate source that interprets it.
You link to an article from a politicized agenda-ridden publication. And specifically an article written by an INTERN – who is currently majoring in English and intending to pursue a career in journalism.
Ok. Yeah right. You don’t get it do you
It has the cdc admission in the article you retarded fuck. Are you still accepting a year old narrative over actual data and admittance?
God damn what a moron you are.
August last year, the CDC reported 42.6 per million cases and 71.5 per million cases for 12-15 and 16-17-year-old males, respectively, but now the health agency admits those incidence rates are actually 150.5 per million for the younger group and 137.1 per million for the older. Among 16- and 17-year-old males, the incidence rate jumps to a whopping 188 per million following the first booster, with 9 of the 47,874 developing heart inflammation in the week after that shot.
the latest CDC study are “3-5 times higher for young men than what the CDC was reporting this time last year,” other health experts, whom the media discredited, were ahead of the curve. Data from a study conducted by Tracy Hoeg, MD, Ph.D., and others in 2021 aligns with the latest CDC numbers from 2022.
Keep being a statist dick sucker chicken little.
“aligns with the latest CDC numbers ”
What is suspect in all those numbers is the very large uncertainty in the ratio of actual infections to repoted infections. That ratio being between 2 and 3.
Lol. Wow.
So you don’t understand the numbers. And how numbers estimated last year by actual doctors were shown to be the correct ones.
Jfree, did you make a sock?
How are some of you still in so much fucking denial? You have been wrong at every step just like the CDC.
What are you laughing at? I do understand the numbers and have published to papers on COVID epidemiology in reputable peer-reviewed medical journals.
“And how numbers estimated last year by actual doctors were shown to be the correct ones. ”
Those actual numbers are methodologically unknowable as are the number do deaths die to COVID-19 which ranges from 6 million to 18 million.
If you what to comment on JFree’s post, put his name at the top of your response
.. deaths die to COVID-19 which ranges from 6 million to 18 million.
Super duper science.
Don’t look.
Clearly you have no idea of the evidence. And prefer the snark to substance.
If you look at reported deaths you get somewhat more than 6.5Million. Some estimate deaths by summing worldwide excess deaths, that gives more than 18 million, which I think is an overestimate.
I expect the number to be more than 7 million but there is no way of knowing precisely; so I stick with reported deaths attributed to COVID-19
Hey, we have ‘senior scientist’ who has ‘published papers’ here to correct all of us who haven’t watched the media bullshit!
No one should question him/her! To do so is to question “SCIENCE”!
“you retarded fuck. ”
Wow, what an incisive debating style!
He is one. 2 years of government lockdowns being shown data and he (or is it you jfree?) repeated false talking points and advocated hospitals not treat the unvaccinated.
Regarding lockdowns I have seen no correlation in any country between the time series of infections, hospitalizations and deaths and the stringency of governmental responses I nee to repeat those evaluations sliding the time series with respect to each other. However, I don’t expect to see any strong correlation appear.
You could conclude that lockdowns as executed in the EU and US were pretty useless. But, well see what the data show.
“…You could conclude that lockdowns as executed in the EU and US were pretty useless. But, well see what the data show.”
Yes, you certainly could. Are you planning on re-running the data under new filters until it gives you a result you prefer?
Asked like a true ideologue.
As a published senior scientist. I will report the correlations without any time adjustments and with a any slip either forward or backwards that shows any positive correlation. That is what honest analysis demands. The data set are openly available, either you or anyone else are free to reproduce the calculations.
“Asked like a true ideologue…”
Answered by a sanctimonious asshole used to being respected by all those underlings!
“…As a published senior scientist…”
Yep, of course, YOU are PURE!
Offer your appeal to authority to those who haven’t watched Fauci make an ass of himself over the past couple of years making the same claims.
By the way, mike/sarc. This is an actual ad hominem attack. He attacks the writer while ignoring the data. Take note.
In light of that, Inslee deserves a small bit of credit for voluntarily relinquishing his pandemic-era powers.
In the same way a robber deserves a small bit of credit for leaving my house after robbing me?
Well, he didn’t steal everything .
World’s tallest midget.
I had an acquaintance who moved to Washington from Iowa. Actually posted on Facebook that the Governor was the only person keeping them alive. A true Top Man deserving total respect. NOT.
How do you think Gavin Newsom managed to defeat his recall? Too many voters literally think he kept them alive.
That was only one reason, the other was expanded “largess” by the CA state government
He’s voluntarily giving up those powers? Must be planning on running for President and doesn’t want his successor to have them.
2 days before the midterms. Maybe he got a call from the party bosses.
Oh, come on. He could do another 25 and make it a nice, even 1000.
Mikey got his marching orders it was okay to be against covid mandates finally.
Seriously, though, if the emergency is over what is the extra seven weeks for.
Precise science shows it will be over in 7 weeks, not now.
Also, why in the world is JesseAZ embarrassing himself by ankle biting on my stupid little joke of a comment.
Your joke? So you do want to keep it going?
Ooh, another little bite at my ankles.
You know when people want to ignore someone they ignore them. What a moron seeking attaboys from Jeff does is make ignorant comments about the person instead.
You do realize how moronic you look commenting on posts you claim you’ve muted is right?
It truly seems like the people here that mute others and then harp on the muted replies don’t understand that everyone else can see all of the posts clear as day and it is very easily to tell which person in a thread is being a butt-hurt child.
Anyone giving odds that on Oct 30th, Covid reaches “critical” levels in Washington and Inslee will be “forced” to keep his powers?
This is my thinking. We all know covid moves into overdrive during the winter, and this is JUST long enough in the future that Inslee can claim ‘the science changed’.
Personally, I’m waiting for a brand new outbreak to happen that will cause even more lockdowns and all that comes with them. Covid was a practice run.
Monkey pox was a dud, so yeah.
For oldsters with a smallpox vaccination, there is no worry.
Also, those of us who don’t take it up the ass in a steamy gay orgy , no worries.
Not quite, Don’t.
There are other avenues of mucosal transmission. Less probable, but non-zero.
So, trivial in the extreme but you hope to take your turn in the JFree PANIC flag relay run?
Not mentioned in Inslee’s little graphic is the fact that we know for a fact that bloodwork donated in mid-December 2019 showed that 2% already had active antibodies. That was four months before we started to ‘slow the curve’, and during prime covid season. We were all doing holiday travel and get-togethers and church and basketball games and bars and randoms on Tinder — yet we didn’t even notice the virus.
“Indeed, governing is a complex process. And there are situations where it is necessary to have one person exercise unilateral authority because an emergency does not permit time for democratic deliberations”
Unless that person is me – no.
I have no desire to be sacrificed for someone else’s ‘greater good’.
Some people might call that being a dictator, if it were about Trump.
There are complaints all the time that it is “TDS” when Reason staff bring up Trump in stories about Democrats. Then they don’t mention Trump, and he comes up anyway — how is that not the mirror image of “TDS”.
This one isn’t trying to defend the actions because “other guy bad too” deflections you engage in?
This is more about Jay Inslee that it is Trump — because he’s one of the people who would freak out about the statement if Trump said it.
Keep digging that hole.
What hole?
The hole that living under King Jay put me in, I guess? This guy is FAR more authoritarian than about anybody in the country — unilaterally banning new gas car sales and shutting down the state for 16 months even after he knows hospitals won’t be overwhelmed – but I’m supposed to worry about what the past guy might do the NEXT time he wins?
It’s far more likely (almost 100%) that Inslee declares some sort of climate emergency and accelerates the demise of the state.
Meanwhile the gop candidate for arizona is advocating for removing the state income tax. Truly scary.
Sounds terrible! Real Mad Max-type shit.
What ever will I do with my own money?
In light of that, Inslee deserves a small bit of credit for voluntarily relinquishing his pandemic-era powers.
Like winning the Nobel Peace price for killing a bunch of people, then stopping?
Wait, his walking stick is adorned with the severed head of an eagle?!?!
Looks like he murdered an endangered species just so he could carry it around.
Two weeks to flatten the curve!
In my vision of hell Joe Biden is forced to sniff Inslee’s hair for all eternity.
Why end it on October 31? Is there something going on the first week of November?
ding ding ding
I am ashamed I didn’t immediately see this (and credited you for the comment on my board when bringing it up)
We have all mail balloting. Election will be decided by yhen so when he announce on October 31 that things have taken a turn for the worse and he has to reinstate, the Ds will already have benefited from his heroically libertarian actions.
Now talk about Illinois’s governor, JB Pritzker (D-Missing Toilets). Pritzker still has Illinois under a Covid emergeny, and keeps on renewing his own emergency orders.
Diane Reynolds free! Free at last!
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/washington-state-we-maybe-did-it
View from a native.
What crappola from a petty dictator
Yet you defend the CDC numbers above. Are you senile?
Anyone who writes “credit to Inslee ” regarding anything to do with Covid probably cant find Washington on a map. He has been one of the worst in the country.
More likely he’s worried about the optics if Rrpublicans capyure the legislature in November and vote to take the powers away. Fact is, if the emergency is over relinquish power right now. The other possibility is that hes going to renege when cases start to rise in October due to flu season.
Well, the dangers of starting with the comments. Pretty scathing article in toto.
Some other tin-pot-dictators didn’t last this long.
Has it really been two weeks already?
Guvner has to clear his schedule so he can deal with the deadly emerging threat of… ULTRA MAGA Americans who are trying to destroy democracy with their violence and climate denialism and their other failures still waiting to be identified.
Was talking to a true blue coworker about the mess that is WA state ferries (a frequent topic of discussion in these parts) ever since governor climate change fired all the unvaxed state employees. I opined that it wasn’t likely gonna get any better any time soon cuz they’ve had plenty of time to replace the fired employees but haven’t. He said “well yeah, if they don’t wanna pay enough they won’t find people.”
Wait, what?
Pay wasn’t an issue when they had full crews, before the firings. But now inadequate pay is the problem? That’s what you’re going with?
There is zero willingness to admit what they’ve done. It’s only gonna make the divide on this issue worse.
I hope the donkeys lose every election from now till the end of time.
Wasn’t it the WA State Supreme Court that deemed the building of Safeco Field, a Seattle sports stadium, with public money an “emergency” in order to get it past an otherwise fatal legal challenge? Possibly what the state needs is a more rigorous definition of the word.
Geiger,
There is little evidence outside of China that the lockdowns prevented 1) infections, 2) morbidity, or 3) mortality.
You can see for yourself, plot the Oxford stringency index against ant of those data on a per nation basis. You will find a corelation coefficient much less tha a couple of percent.
So you can understand data yet defend the CDC and false data above. Can you make up your fucking mind?
Jesse,
Where did you see me defend the CDC. They have lied, (not just been wrong) many times.
So please tell me where is defended the CDC and its upper management.
If you are interested in an honest discussion you will point out my defense of the CDC