Ross: Who’s really hurt if we rein in Gov. Inslee’s emergency powers?

Both political parties agree that a governor needs emergency powers.

Sometimes you can’t wait for a legislature to act. Natural disasters and pandemics sometimes require quick action to save lives. So, in every state, a governor can declare an emergency and act without the legislature, which is what Governor Jay Inslee has done in declaring his mask and vaccine mandates. But unlike most states, Washington’s legislature has no authority to end an unpopular mandate.

There are plenty of Republicans who think the governor’s mandates have gone too far. So on Tuesday, there was a proposal to limit them.

Jason Mercier of the Washington Policy Center, which generally backs Republican causes, asked a state Senate committee to consider his proposal that “no emergency order issued by the governor may continue for longer than 30 days unless extended by the legislature.”

So, a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate would automatically end after 30 days unless the legislature voted to keep it in place.

That sounds very reasonable; there are certainly other states that do that. And among conservatives especially, there is a serious case of Inslee fatigue. He’s been described as a tyrant, a dictator, even a “totalitarian” dictator because of his mandates. The phrase “Inslee a dictator” yields 155,000 hits on Google.

But the way this pandemic has panned out, I think Republicans should be careful here. Because if this change happens (and should Republicans get control of the legislature) they would be under a lot of pressure to let mandates expire because that’s their role as a party — to err on the side of freedom.

Yet when it comes to COVID, Republicans tend to be a much more vulnerable population than Democrats.

An analysis by the Northwest News Network found that the COVID fatality rate in Republican counties in Washington was six and a half times the fatality rate in Democratic counties.

For whatever reason, Democrats are much more likely to voluntarily mask up and get vaccinated than their Republican counterparts.

Which means that any attempt to block emergency pandemic mandates would not affect the parties equally. To be blunt, the numbers indicate it would ultimately result in fewer Republican voters.

I’m not sure where Democrats are on this issue. I guess it depends on how Machiavellian they are. But if it does come up and they suddenly decide to join with Republicans in limiting the governor’s power to impose vaccine mandates, I’d be very suspicious.

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