Republican bid to limit health officials could cause ‘preventable tragedies’ – experts
By: Jessica Glenza
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Republican lawmakers across more than a dozen states are working to limit the powers of local health departments in ways experts say is likely to lead to "preventable tragedies" during disease outbreaks, including the Covid-19 pandemic.
The attempts to limit the emergency powers of public health agencies comes alongside harassment of individual public health workers, renewed concern about the spread of the highly transmissible Covid-19 Delta variant, and a flagging US vaccination campaign.
"The supposed rationale is that a lot happened during Covid. People didn't like being restricted so much," said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO at the National Association of County and City Health Officials (Naccho).
"But if these laws and pieces of legislation stand beyond the pandemic we have a big problem," she said. "They basically handcuff health officials from being able to use century-long mitigation measures."
Montana barred local health authorities from quarantining people suspected of being exposed to or infected with a contagious disease. That ends an infection control measure used since at least the plague, known as the "Black Death", hit Italian cities in the 14th century.
North Dakota banned state health authorities from requiring a face covering for any reason, a measure that could impact diseases such as tuberculosis. Florida gave the governor sweeping power to "invalidate" any local emergency order. Kansas removed the governor's ability to close businesses during a public health emergency.
Together, at least 15 states are considering new limits to local public health authorities' power in ways likely to diminish local expertise, the ability to locally tailor restrictions and lead to more politicized responses.
"I was a staff attorney at the Massachusetts department of public health for 10 years, and then I was the general counsel for the next 26," said Donna Levin, national director of the Network for Public Health Law. Levin has since been with the network for an additional seven years of her career.
"I can safely say I have not in my experience seen the assault on public health officials, and threats and worse across the country, and I've never seen this wholesale attack on public health authority … in the context of emergency response," Levin said.
Lawmakers across at least nine states have zeroed in on the emergency powers of health departments to limit how people gather in places such as churches, schools and businesses. Conservative model legislation has described these limitations as orders that "infringe on the rights of private parties".
Many of the limits on public health measures have also come with the imprimatur of one of the most powerful and well-financed conservative legislative machines in the country - the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec).
At least nine states have considered "emergency power limitation" legislation proposed by Alec that could directly limit public health response, a report by Naccho found. Those states - Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and Washington - lean conservative or purple.
Alec began circulating model legislation related to Covid-19 as early as last April. The emergency powers legislation was first published in 2020 December. Since then, experts said attempts to limit the emergency powers of health departments have become more concerted and widespread as the pandemic has marched on, with states such as Missouri curtailing the emergency powers of health departments in June.
Alongside a raft of new legislation pushed by Alec, a loose coalition of conservative groups have worked since April 2020 to drive attendance at anti-lockdown protests, fund lawsuits against public health orders and commissioned polls to support the appearance of a "grassroots" drive for reform.
Alec's proposed legislation is meant to limit government spending, reduce regulation and impose "constitutional law", according to principles laid out by Alec's conservative economists early in the pandemic.
"As they should, every state will have a different solution and approach to reopening, and Alec will support legislators in these efforts," said Alec's CEO, Lisa Nelson, in April 2020.
Alec's primary model for consolidating power in state capitals is through "pre-emption", or banning any locality except the state from legislating on an issue. Alec has used this strategy across issues as wide-ranging as workers' rights to environmental protections.
"This is an organization that is all about consolidating power in the state, particularly in conservative states," said Kim Haddow, a strategic consultant for the Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC), a group that works to maintain the democratic rights of cities, counties and other municipalities.
That, Haddow said, allows Alec to deal directly with state legislators who tend to be "disproportionately representative of white, rural areas", rather than thousands of localities. Pre-emption also denies urban centers, which tend to be more racially diverse and lean Democratic, the ability to enact progressive reform.
"Around the pandemic, [Alec] took advantage and exploited the ability to take away more local power," said Haddow. "People are saying why vote" if states constantly pre-empt local legislation, she said. "Well, why indeed?"
Missouri is one of the states working to limit the power of public health authorities. In June, its Republican governor, Mike Parson, signed legislation to limit public health orders to 30 days in a statewide emergency, and 21 days when there is no state declaration. A local governing body then has to vote to renew such restrictions.
Parson was a speaker at Alec's 2020 conference, which was forced to go digital after Florida, where they planned to hold the in-person conference, became the center of an outbreak.
"There is a longstanding discomfort with public health at its core, but Covid-19 has been immediately politicized in a way other health issues weren't," said Dr Elvin Geng, an infectious disease expert at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.
Missouri is also among states now experiencing the most significant outbreak of Covid-19 since spring 2021, when a fast-moving vaccination campaign and social distancing led to the lowest rates of new infections since the pandemic began.
Though cases remain low overall compared with the peak of the pandemic, Missouri is among the least vaccinated states in the nation, with just 40% of people fully vaccinated.
"Local control is critical because epidemics are heterogenous in severity and timing," said Geng. Missouri is currently experiencing one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in the nation.
Remarkably, Missouri was also the target of another well-financed conservative effort to avoid government spending that might affect taxes on the wealthy. The political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, funded in part by the billionaire oil and gas magnate David Koch, worked to dissuade voters from expanding Medicaid.
The health insurance program for the poor and disabled would have provided health insurance to 230,000 low-income Missourians. Voters approved the ballot measure, which state Republicans refused to honor, and quickly took to court.
It ranks last in public health funding, and spent just $7 a person on public health measures in 2020, an analysis by the State Health Access Data and Assistance Center, a state-focused health research center found.
"Health and guidance and orders were not seen for what they were," said Tremmel Freeman, "which was trying to protect the health and wellbeing of the community."
Tags
Who is online
128 visitors
So it seems the main goal is to consolidate power....
I thought republicans were suppose to be against that.
They are taking away county, city, local ability and tying their hands and making it so only the state house has authority.
apparently not while they're in power...
It just blows my mind. For a group of people that are suppose to be for small government, are all for consolidating power at the top.
Taking away any action a community could take.
corporate owned autocrats always know what's best for everybody...
Well damn... one of the two major political parties working to consolidate it's power... In this case it appears to be a reaction to what the other side did where they went to extremes in their own power grab during the pandemic and now the other side is working to take back some of the power.
I can only hope that someday people realize that this is what both of the two major political parties do, they work to consolidate their power. Because as long as people continue to play this game of pointing out one side while ignoring what the other side is doing there is no hope of ending the shitstorm and getting power back to where it belongs.
I would hardly compare taking measures to keep the population safe to taking away the ability to do anything.
Please re-read my second paragraph, because you are doing exactly that. You are taking sides which is exactly what BOTH political parties want you to do. Of course they want you to take their side, but it's still the same game. During the height of the pandemic , the political party in power in the individual state (for each state) over-reached in an attempt to consolidate their power as the party wanted. These measures being taken by Republicans are an attempt in states where they have the power or are near to even footing, to pull back on the power seized by the Democrats during the pandemic because like the Republicans in this thread, the Democrats over-reached in enacting restrictions and lockdowns.
This is what the two political parties do. But if you continue to play their game, the only losers in the game are we the people.
Still don't see your point. How was taking measures to stop the spread of a pandemic in anyway consolidating power....
It was using power available to mitigate a crisis...
Also both republican and Dem run states did the same things....
Ok, lets use Governor Whitmer of Mi. She didn't really work with the Republican party, she dictated restrictions based on her interpretation of the science and was slow to change restrictions as the science changed. And she made her restrictions and mandates based on an Emergency Powers Act that was enacted back in 1945 to combat race riots. You don't think that was an over-reach?
Some of what was done was to try to slow the spread of the pandemic but some of it was a simple power grab by local politicians to get their name in the news.
Isn't that a rather dangerous statement to make? Using the example of Governor Whitmer, one could easily say that she abused the power that was available. The Emergency Powers Act that she used had been set up for a completely different time and reason. You should be able to see the potential for abuse that this provides.
And that's what I'm trying to point out. Both political parties do this shit and so long as people continue to bitch about what one party is doing while ignoring what the other party is also doing, you are playing their game and we the people are the losers in this game.
You only have one example of a governor that the right wing has been attacking and using for political fodder for almost a year.
If ones don't like the way she did it, then they can modify or, gasp, actually legislate guidelines.
Instead of taking any ability away.
It is still in no way consolidating power as the republicans are doing.
when you see the name ALEC involved with government, it's all about limiting corporate expense and liability.
Scary the pull they still have.
yes, I only used her as one example. There are others, it's not hard to find. But it's quite obvious that you and I are looking at two different aspects here because you seem to be defending the Democrats and only attacking the Republics for this power grab. And I'm arguing that both parties play the same game of making grabs for power. Neither party should be playing that game because the loser in that game is us.
Yep - corporations hiring lobbyists to influence legislative members and "help" write laws, all to reduce liability for corporations. ALEC works mostly with conservatives, I'm sure there are others that work mostly with progressives. They all do the same thing, work to change laws to benefit themselves and the end result is still the same. We as citizens lose out.
That I can agree with.
I know they all play games. Should we shrug our shoulders when we are witnessing it happen in real time?
I am blaming republicans because they are the ones doing it.
I have no where defended Dems. It is not about them.
both sides do it, blah, blah, blah... so yeah, let's choose the side that looked the other way, and continues to look the other way, on the last executive branch's abuse of power during the last 4 years, the FEC violations, the obstruction of justice, the nepotism, the corruption, the jail sentences, the pardons, the attempted coup instigated by an asshole that was fired by the voters and still continues to promote divisiveness by promoting his bullshit theory of election fraud, because he lost. the minority in the senate's obstruction of needed infrastructure repairs, economic repairs due to the pandemic, an immigration policy, and a fair income tax structure for all americans. sorry, your side had it's chance, and the only thing that fucking buffoon accomplished was a welfare program for the wealthy and killing half a million americans due to his gross incompetence in office. I'm not a millionaire and I'm not a delusional moron. I'll take my chances with any side that gives me a sliver of hope. guess who's side that isn't now, and hasn't been for over 50 years.