According to a story in a Hartford paper, “About a dozen Connecticut schools have closed so far due to coronavirus cases; Gov. Ned Lamont says they shouldn’t shut down over a single case”.
Superintendents of
schools across the state are understandably confused about Governor Ned
Lamont’s edicts concerning school openings because the edicts are lawless in three
important senses: 1) they set no statewide standards applicable to all schools that
would allow superintendents to uniformly enforce the confusing edicts, 2) the
Governor’s authority to close schools, set monetary penalties for people who
decline to wear masks in public, and otherwise force citizens of the state to
abide by his 70 executive orders, may not be constitutionally kosher, and 3)
sanctions, which mark the difference between gubernatorial recommendations and
enforceable regulations, have been applied according to a calculus that is
indifferent to uniform standards.
Lamont’s authority
to govern by edict in the absence of sufficient public hearings, a judicial
system largely closed for public business, and legislative oversight and
affirmation of his separate 70 edicts, has now been called into question by at
least two constitutionally wide-awake legislators, both Republicans, who are
suing the governor.
Their suit declares that
the governor’s edicts unconstitutionally modify or suspend state statutes, the
constitutional prerogative of the whole General Assembly in session, that the
governor impermissibly reissued a public health emergency following a declaration
by the Department of Public Health of a sharp decline in the rate of infection
in Connecticut, and that the politically caused “pandemic” in Connecticut and
consequent reduction in both business activity and state tax receipts does not
even come close to satisfying statutory criteria under state law for a “serious
disaster.”
Quoting from the
authorizing statute, the suit asserts: “Despite declaring a civil preparedness
emergency, the defendant [Lamont] has not identified any incident of ‘serious
disaster or… enemy attack, sabotage or other hostile action within the state,
or… the imminence of such an event.’” In addition, the suit affirms that, given
the available public health data, Lamont’s unconstitutional “usurpation” of the
General Assembly’s constitutional authority is “completely meritless.”
The term ‘meritless”
may seem strong until we recall, as courts often have done, the important
difference between a government of laws – which can only be written by
legislative representatives -- and a government of men, always arbitrary and,
quite literally, lawless – certainly unprincipled.
Everyone knows that
a regulation unaccompanied by sanctions – which answers the question “What
happens to me if I ignore the law? – is no more than a suggestion. Lamont has suggested
that school districts should open despite the threat of Coronavirus. So far,
East Hartford, West Haven, Westbrook and Killingly High Schools all closed
after superintendents discovered a single case of Coronavirus in their school
systems, causing Lamont to explode in indignation.
“No, no, no” the
governor erupted. “Especially [in] K through 8, we’re trying to keep that 4th
grade class unto itself as a pod, as a cohort. So that if there happens to be
an infection in that one class, it’s just those 20 students and that teacher
who would have to quarantine – not the entire middle school, not the entire
school.
But, we find from a report in a Hartford paper, Lamont has since softened the severity of his critique. “Education, Lamont said, has historically been a local decision. Public health is a statewide decision; education is local. People know where I stand, people know what I believe. But now, it’s up to each and every school. I can’t mandate that. This is simply another way of saying that any mandate issued by Lamont affecting any schools is unlawful and therefore void.
This is a governor
who has offered no leeway to businesses in his state, or to restaurants half-filled
on the governor’s orders. Last week Lamont applied punishing sanctions upon tax
payers who are seen in public without masks. He has shut off air traffic from
states experiencing Coronavirus spikes, mostly temporary, and then adjusted his
orders after both Bradley Field and the aircraft industry in Connecticut
experienced business losses that led to severe cuts in employment, not to
mention corresponding reductions in tax payments to Connecticut.
What is the governing
principle that allows Lamont to apply punishing sanctions upon people who do
not wear masks in public and, at the same time, permits schools to defy his
recommendations with impunity?
In a government of men, not laws, there is no governing principle to cage overweening ambition or government by political decree. Principles are replaced with expediency; campaigns, the ceaseless struggle for power, become more important than the continuation of proven traditional republican governance. And especially in Connecticut, “The Constitution State”, there is, in the absence of a working General Assembly and a functioning judicial system, no means of checking and balancing a power in the executive branch. Such executive branch power we have not seen in our nation or state since King George picked up his marbles and left Americans to their own republican devices – one of which was the elevation of a government of laws over that of a government of men, however virtuous they claim to be.
Small “r” republican
governance in the state and nation has survived wars and medical viral
infections much more fatal than Coronavirus.
No longer – to our
shame, no longer.
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