June 10, 2020

While both chambers of the state legislature voted to end Gov. Tom Wolf’s emergency declaration regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, it could come back. So, it remains unclear whether the state can yet return to normal.

In a press release issued late Tuesday, House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler, R-Peach Bottom, said under the Pennsylvania Constitution, the General Assembly has the authority to terminate a state of disaster emergency at any time by concurrent resolution. “Upon adoption of the resolution, the governor must issue an executive order or proclamation ending the state of disaster emergency. Today’s House vote completes the concurrent resolution process.”

Maybe.

State Rep. Stephen Barrar, R-160, said in a previous interview that the governor could issue another such declaration after waiting for 24 for after the legislature’s vote. In a brief telephone interview Wednesday morning following the Tuesday vote, Barrar said Wolf could also go to court over the matter but hopes he won’t.

“We hope he’ll sit down and work with us on this,” Barrar said. “He’s ignored the legislature for 90 days. He’s been acting unilaterally without any consultation with the legislature. That’s why we wanted to kill this emergency declaration because everything he’s done through executive orders through the emergency session can be done through legislation and in cooperation with the legislature working with the governor.”

Barrar went on to say that some of the measures the governor took, such as expanding Medicaid, food stamps, and certain provisions in the unemployment act should remain. “We want to work with him on those things, but you just can’t ignore the legislature for 90 days.”

Barrar, who is retiring at the end of this legislative session after 24 years in the House, also lamented over the state’s finances.

“We’re the ones who are responsible for the budget, and he’s just spending money with little legislative oversight, but at least he’s reopened the Freedom of Information Office in the capital, that he had shut down for almost 60 or 70 days. We couldn’t file a right to know request to see what he was spending because he shut the office down.”

It’s been reported elsewhere that while Republican lawmakers assert that the governor can’t veto the resolution, Wolf had already vowed to do just that.

All five counties in the Southeastern Pennsylvania region were moved from the red to the yellow phase of the governor’s scale last Friday but with no date set for a move to green. It remains unclear what effect the legislature’s action will have on reopening the state.