You really have to hand it to the legislature for bringing the grifter energy to this emergency special session it has called. Ostensibly, they are there to deal with the COVID emergency and the consequences of expiring benefits and a dwindling unemployment insurance trust fund. But they're taking the opportunity to also run through a stack of tax breaks for businesses, including and especially oil and gas, to further de-fund public education and various other schemes. Always good to get em in there when nobody is paying attention.
Even the marquee item on the agenda isn't quite what it seems. They sound like they are saying they are there to shut down the Governor's emergency order because freedom and democracy or something.
The push to give lawmakers a say in coronavirus rules started taking shape. Republican lawmakers are circulating petitions to end the emergency health declaration that underlies a sheaf of directives to lessen the spread of the deadly COVID-19, but also have led to widespread shutdowns of business activities and unprecedented unemployment. GOP legislators – including Senate President Page Cortez and House Speaker Clay Schexnayder – want to give the Legislature a seat at the table in emergency powers.
"The Legislature is a co-equal branch of government ... and we should have a seat at the table," Cortez said.
But, as we've already found out, those petitions are difficult to complete. In part, this is because potential signatories have trouble coming up with specific aspects of the response they would want to do differently.
Asked what specific components of Edwards' coronavirus restrictions he objects to, Cortez said merely that lawmakers want a "seat at the table." Republicans have railed against a host of the rules, including restrictions on bars and restaurants and visits to nursing homes.
They just want a seat at the table. They don't actually want to do anything from that seat, though. As Karlin points out in this article (and then highlights again in a tweet thread) this bill would actually make cancelling the emergency order more difficult by adding the requirement of a second petition.
So it turns out these Republicans, despite holding super-majority status in the state legislature, really just wanted a platform from which they can be seen complaining. It's nice to be heard, I guess.
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