In an era where Democrats never miss an opportunity to accuse Republicans of being Nazis with Gestapo, or Goebbels, or some other despotic figure, who is it that’s REALLY throwing their political weight around?
In a landmark ruling with far-reaching implications, the Michigan Supreme Court decided Friday that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer violated her constitutional authority by continuing to issue orders to combat COVID-19 without the approval of state lawmakers.
The state’s high court ruled 4-3 that a state law allowing the governor to declare emergencies and keep them in place without legislative input — the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act — is unconstitutional.
The court was unanimous in ruling that a separate law — the 1976 Emergency Management Act — did not give Whitmer the power, after April 30, to issue or renew any executive orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic after 28 days without Legislative approval.
The ruling, which was requested by a federal judge earlier this year, serves as advice to the federal court and indicates how the court would rule on a suit challenging Whitmer’s emergency powers. — DetroitNews
Her ‘highness’ did not appreciate that curtailing of her total power, or wresting power out of the executive branch and returning it to the people’s representatives in the legislative branch.
She blasted the court which — if Trump did it — would undoubtedly be evidence of his ‘attacks on democracy’.
“This threat is still very real and the sad irony is on the day that the president was admitted to the hospital with the very virus he called a hoax, the Supreme Court in Michigan undermined my emergency rule, my emergency orders that I’ve had to enact that puts us in the same state as all other states in this nation, to save lives,” the governor said. “We’ve saved thousands of lives and the Supreme Court, on a slim majority Republican vote, undermined that effort.”
Whitmer previously said the emergency orders would remain in place for 21 days from the state Supreme Court’s decision and that many of her responsive measures would continue under alternative sources of authority.
Tapper offered a clarification to Whitmer’s comments, saying President Trump has not called the virus a hoax, but acknowledging he had called the Democratic and media concerns over it a hoax. –MLive
She was already planning work-arounds to keep her top-down orders from lapsing…
Whitmer said Friday she “vehemently” disagreed with the court’s ruling, which she said made Michigan an “outlier” among the majority of states that have emergency orders in place.
The governor said that even after the Supreme Court ruling takes effect, her directives will remain in place through “alternative sources of authority.”
The ruling appears to leave intact orders issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, which have addressed some of the same subject matter contained in Whitmer’s executive orders. — DetroitNews
But there’s a snag in that plan of hers. Who would enforce it?
It’s not going to be Michigan’s AG.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel will no longer enforce Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive orders on the coronavirus, effectively ending dozens of statewide edicts, after the Michigan Supreme Court two days earlier struck down the governor’s emergency powers.
Since the state’s chief law enforcement officer declined to keep enforcing the governor’s COVID-19 restrictions on Sunday, the Whitmer administration is now forced to pursue other ways to maintain public health restrictions after initially insisting the orders remained in effect pending a supposed 21-day legal reconsideration period.
Nessel’s office on Sunday made clear the department “will no longer enforce the governor’s executive orders through criminal prosecution.”
“However, her decision is not binding on other law enforcement agencies or state departments with independent enforcement authority,” said Ryan Jarvi, a spokesman for Nessel’s office. — DetroitNews
She doesn’t have quite as much power as she THINKS she has.
All it takes is a few key people to tell her ‘no’, and even her fiercest threats are suddenly toothless.
