GOP Legislators Want to Repeal Mask Mandate
A joint resolution would terminate Evers' public health orders.
After repeatedly complaining about emergency declarations that Gov. Tony Evers has issued in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Republican lawmakers for the first time have begun formal action to block him.
Senate Republicans introduced a joint resolution Thursday that would undo the governor’s most recent COVID-19-related emergency executive order and the new statewide mask order that accompanied it. Evers announced the orders on Friday, Jan. 15; they took effect Tuesday, Jan. 19.
The resolution declares that “the public health emergency declared by the governor in Executive Order #104 on January 19, 2021, in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus, is unlawful and is terminated,” and that “termination … applies to all actions of the governor and all emergency orders issued pursuant to the declaration of the public health emergency.”
If the Republicans’ resolution makes it to the floor of both the Senate and the Assembly, it is almost certain to pass, ending the emergency declaration and mask order. Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, and individual Republicans in the Senate and the Assembly have consistently criticized Evers for the mask orders he has issued starting in late July.
A simple majority of each chamber is sufficient to pass a resolution, which does not require the governor’s signature. No Republican lawmaker has publicly expressed support for the governor’s health emergency orders or mask mandates.
Evers has declared new 60-day health emergencies, accompanied by mask mandates, beginning July 30, and subsequently on Sept. 22 and Nov. 20, and again with the Jan. 19 order.
Evers first issued an emergency executive order in response to the coronavirus pandemic on March 12, expiring on May 11. The law authorizing the governor to declare an emergency puts a 60-day time limit on each declaration, after which the emergency can only be extended with the consent of the Legislature.
The Senate joint resolution declares that all of the subsequent orders are effectively extensions of the March 12 order and therefore illegal without the Legislature’s approval.
The conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty has made the same argument in a lawsuit it first filed against Evers after the July 30 emergency declaration. That suit is now before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which heard arguments in November but has not yet announced when it will issue a ruling.
The only other time that the Legislature’s Republican leaders have taken steps to block actions of the Evers administration in response to the pandemic was in the spring, after the governor extended the Safer at Home order that the administration first issued March 25.
In that instance, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and the Senate majority leader at the time, Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), filed a lawsuit that argued that order could not be extended without the Legislature’s approval. The Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with the GOP lawmakers on a 4-3 vote, throwing out the Safer at Home extension on May 13. (Fitzgerald has since left the state Senate after he was elected to Congress Nov. 3.)
A spokesperson for the governor did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment about the Senate resolution.
Reprinted with permission of Wisconsin Examiner.
More about the Coronavirus Pandemic
- Governors Tony Evers, JB Pritzker, Tim Walz, and Gretchen Whitmer Issue a Joint Statement Concerning Reports that Donald Trump Gave Russian Dictator Putin American COVID-19 Supplies - Gov. Tony Evers - Oct 11th, 2024
- MHD Release: Milwaukee Health Department Launches COVID-19 Wastewater Testing Dashboard - City of Milwaukee Health Department - Jan 23rd, 2024
- Milwaukee County Announces New Policies Related to COVID-19 Pandemic - County Executive David Crowley - May 9th, 2023
- DHS Details End of Emergency COVID-19 Response - Wisconsin Department of Health Services - Apr 26th, 2023
- Milwaukee Health Department Announces Upcoming Changes to COVID-19 Services - City of Milwaukee Health Department - Mar 17th, 2023
- Fitzgerald Applauds Passage of COVID-19 Origin Act - U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald - Mar 10th, 2023
- DHS Expands Free COVID-19 Testing Program - Wisconsin Department of Health Services - Feb 10th, 2023
- MKE County: COVID-19 Hospitalizations Rising - Graham Kilmer - Jan 16th, 2023
- Not Enough Getting Bivalent Booster Shots, State Health Officials Warn - Gaby Vinick - Dec 26th, 2022
- Nearly All Wisconsinites Age 6 Months and Older Now Eligible for Updated COVID-19 Vaccine - Wisconsin Department of Health Services - Dec 15th, 2022
Read more about Coronavirus Pandemic here
More about the Statewide Mask Mandate
- Court Watch: Why Court Voided Evers Emergency Order - Gretchen Schuldt - Apr 5th, 2021
- Statement by Heartland Institute Director Jeré Fabick on WI Supreme Court Victory Against Gov. Tony Evers - Heartland Institute - Mar 31st, 2021
- Senator Agard: Statement on Supreme Court Decision - State Sen. Melissa Agard, Senate Democratic Leader - Mar 31st, 2021
- Wisconsin’s Hyperpartisan Supreme Court is Endangering the Public - Democratic Party of Wisconsin - Mar 31st, 2021
- Wisconsin Supreme Court: Gov. Evers’ Multiple Emergency Declarations Violate Law - Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty - Mar 31st, 2021
- Rep. Hesselbein Statement on Supreme Court Ruling on Emergency Orders - Dianne Hesselbein - Mar 31st, 2021
- Statement on Wisconsin Supreme Court Decision - State Sen. Jon Erpenbach - Mar 31st, 2021
- Gov. Evers Releases Statement Regarding Supreme Court Decision - Gov. Tony Evers - Mar 31st, 2021
- Rep. Hintz: Statement on Wisconsin Supreme Court Ruling - State Rep. Gordon Hintz - Mar 31st, 2021
- State Supreme Court Overrules Evers’ Emergency Powers - Laurel White - Mar 31st, 2021
Read more about Statewide Mask Mandate here
I wonder how severe a health crisis has to become before the Republican legislature and WLL realize that science is the answer, action is the answer, mandates are the answer? Lawsuits aren’t the answer. When 400,000 people in this country die from it? And our economy has been devastated from it? Oh wait, that is now. So, I ask, what will it take? How bad does it have to be? In the meantime, I guess they think, why not throw a wrench in the spokes of the effort to curtail the spread? Some of you elected these people.
Immoral actions aren’t limited to simple personal acts against a particular individual but also those actions which effect a group of people! Racism is immoral. Sexism is immoral. And the list goes on. Failure to care for others and protect them from a disease – isn’t that also immoral? It baffles me to try and understand who cares so little about themselves, their family, neighbors that they would ignore the scientific community and its advice to do something so simple as wear a mask! Do these people also refuse to wear shirts, shoes, or seatbelts because those are also mandates?
There are two useful quotes to put these men’s actions, as well as our times, in context. First, the historian T.W. Maitland once said that “We should always beware that what now lies in the past once lay in the future.” Johnson, Vox, Fitzgerald and the rest of this group of nihilists and know-nothings all count on short memories, but when this pandemic and its impacts are looked at in the rearview mirror, they will have a lot to answer for.
The second quote is from Herodutus: “All arrogance will reap a harvest rich in tears.” Let’s hope so, and, let’s hope that, for once, some of the tears are those of the perpetrators of this ongoing human disaster. And, as JMcD says in his comment, “Some of you elected these people.”