First ballot test of governorâs pandemic powers starts in PA
By MARC LEVY Associated Press,Updated May 13, 2021, 5:15 p.m.
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Protesters demonstrated during a rally against Pennsylvania s coronavirus stay-at-home order in April 2020. Republican lawmakers across the country have tried to roll back the emergency powers that governors wielded during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, Pennsylvaniaâs GOP-controlled Legislature took its case to voters, in twin constitutional amendments on the primary ballot that would give lawmakers much more power over disaster declarations, whether another pandemic or a natural disaster.Matt Rourke/Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa.â Republican lawmakers across the country have tried to roll back the emergency powers that governors wielded during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they ordered businesses shut, mask-wearing in public, and students home for distance learning.
1st ballot test of governor’s pandemic powers starts in Pennsylvania
Updated May 13, 2021;
Pennsylvania’s Legislature is now taking its case to the ballot.
In the first vote of its kind since the coronavirus outbreak, voters statewide will decide twin constitutional amendments that would give lawmakers much more power over disaster declarations, to apply whether the emergency is another pandemic or natural disaster.
The questions were placed on Tuesday’s primary ballot by the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has had a long-running feud with the state’s Democratic governor over his emergency actions during the pandemic.
“This is the first opportunity we actually have something tangible, where more than just a handful of sampled people will be able to have an input,” said Jonathon Hauenschild, an attorney at the American Legislative Exchange Council, an association of conservative lawmakers and businesses.
nd, Williams told The Center Square.
“[Tax expenditure limits] is an area that we watch very closely,” he said. “We think it’s a really important factor for states to have some sort of limit in state statute, or even better, in a state constitution. We look at Colorado, for instance, in their taxpayers’ bill of rights … that has been in their state constitution now for 25 plus years, as really one of the gold standards there that limit the growth of government to population and inflation growth, and it’s been something that’s really saved taxpayers in Colorado from much more tax burden changes over the years and spending growth.”
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)âs
Rich States, Poor States: State Economic Competitiveness Index uses 15 equally weighted policy variables and trends from past decades to rank states.
The state gained high marks in three key metrics, including being a Right to Work state, not levying inheritance or estate taxes, and a relatively low public employee per 10,000 population of 434.2.
The report ranked Michigan 36th for its top marginal corporate income tax rate of 8%, 33rd for its property tax burden of $31.27 per $1,000 of personal income, and 34th for a 7.2% of debt service as a share of tax revenue.
ALEC says the report shows that cutting taxes, paying down debt, and maintaining free-market policies have helped states like Florida, Georgia and Texas improve their national rankings.
By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan
The January 6th insurrection was one way to try to overthrow democracy: incite a mob to ransack the Capitol and threaten to kill key leaders who dared renounce Donald Trump’s Big Lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. People were killed and injured, public property was damaged, but Congress still counted the Electoral College votes, delayed by only about 12 hours. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland called the insurrection the most “dangerous threat to democracy” he has witnessed. “And in the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat we face comes from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race.”