Photo Courtesy PCN
BY: TODD BARTLEY, NEWS TALK WMPT, NEWS@TALKWILLIAMSPORT.COM
BENJAMIN PONTZ, PAPOST
Senator Gene Yaw Tuesday evening voiced his support of HR836 which included language from SB323 to end the Emergency Declaration issued by Governor Tom Wolf in March at the inception of the coronavirus pandemic.
Reached Tuesday evening by News Talk WMPT, Yaw stated, “If the PA House approves HR836 the Governor would then have the burden of making public notices that are cited in the legislation ending the Emergency Declaration.”
Yaw went onto say, “this is the type of legislative action that does not need his (Gov. Wolf) approval. the legislature is trying to limit hos power.”
A constitutional amendment is being taken up tomorrow in the Senate. It sets out to boost the legislature’s involvement in emergency declarations and limit them to 30 days before legislative action would be required to renew or extend them.
The video of the floor speech made by Senator Yaw is provided (full text listed below):
https://www.facebook.com/SenatorGeneYaw/videos/2626892857524316/
The audio of the floor speech made by Senator Yaw is provided (full text listed below):
Benjamin Pontz of PA Post authored the following in the immediate aftermath of the vote this evening.
Separately, constitutional amendment to boost legislature’s involvement in emergency declarations advances to final consideration in Senate
The Pennsylvania Senate passed a concurrent resolution Tuesday afternoon that directs the governor to end the emergency declaration that grants him expansive powers to manage the coronavirus pandemic. The resolution will head back to the House for concurrence, which could happen as soon as Tuesday night.
Two Senate Democrats broke ranks to join a unanimous Republican caucus in passing the resolution, 31-19. The resolution passed the House on May 28 with eight Democratic votes.
During a debate that spanned four hours and grew heated on both sides of the aisle, 30 of the chamber’s 50 senators spoke.
Republicans tended to focus their arguments on separation of powers issues and the impact the shutdown has had on Pennsylvanians.
“We are here in response to the voices that put us here,” said state Sen. Scott Martin (R-Lancaster).
“He’s our governor. He’s not our king,” said state Sen. David Argall (R-Berks, Schuylkill). “The General Assembly never ever intended to grant this governor or any governor, the royal powers of the king. This legislation is an attempt to clarify our checks and balances.”
“At the stroke of a pen, back in March, the governor chose winners and losers,” said state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Adams, Cumberland & Franklin), who sponsored a companion resolution in April. “At the stroke of the pen, he selected essential and non-essential, life sustaining and non-life sustaining. At the stroke of a pen, life and death. It is not hyperbole to say — looking back at the history of our Commonwealth — that we’ve never had a more powerful governor in the history of our state.”
Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) suggested that even if the resolution passes, it would not necessarily stop the business closure orders because the Secretary of Health has authority under the Disease Prevention and Control Act of 1955 to close businesses, he said.
Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman (R-Centre) countered that the Secretary of Health has the powers only over those who are sick.
Democrats tended to focus on the potential loss of federal funding should Pennsylvania become the first state to end its emergency declaration as well as the ongoing risks of COVID-19.
State Sen. Lindsey Williams (D-Allegheny) pointed to Title 42, Section 5191 of the U.S. Code, which states, “As a part of [a request for assistance], and as a prerequisite to emergency assistance under this chapter, the Governor shall take appropriate action under State law and direct execution of the State’s emergency plan.”
Williams dismissed an assurance that Mastriano received from a White House official as insufficient justification to protect the Commonwealth.
“I’m a licensed attorney. I want a legal opinion. I want citations to statutes, regulations, and legal authority to justify that legal opinion,” she said.
State Sen. Maria Collett (D-Bucks, Montgomery) added, “I am not willing to bet my constituents’ livelihoods on the whims of this president.”
But Democrats also questioned the capacity of the legislature to act responsibly in a pandemic.
State Sen. Art Haywood (D-Montgomery, Philadelphia) noted that, on April 15, near the peak of COVID-19 cases in Pennsylvania, the legislature passed legislation to reopen several sectors of the economy.
State Sen. Katie Muth (D-Berks, Chester, Montgomery), responding to Republican arguments that stay-at-home and business closure orders infringed on people’s personal freedom, said, “Your freedom does not give you the right to put someone else at risk.”
Two Democrats did express reservations about the governor’s use of executive power, but neither voted for the resolution.
State Sen. Lisa Boscola (D-Lehigh, Northampton) said she would have been inclined to support the version of HR 836 that passed the House, which terminated the disaster declaration only to the extent that it treats some businesses differently than others, but that the Senate version, as amended Tuesday, went too far because it might jeopardize federal funding.
“As frustrated as I am with the approach that this administration has taken with the Lehigh Valley specifically, I am not going to put federal dollars in jeopardy. I can’t do that. I am going to set aside my personal feelings about how I feel about the administration’s approach to the Lehigh Valley … I’m just going to vote in the financial interests — the best interests — of all Pennsylvanians,” Boscola said.
Legislators do not agree on what happens if the House concurs with the Senate’s amendments to HR 836. Democrats maintain that the governor can simply disapprove of the resolution (effectively a veto), which would require two-thirds of both chambers to override for the resolution to take effect. That is the process prescribed for concurrent resolutions in the state. constitution.
But Republicans maintain that Title 35 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes require the governor to sign the resolution.
“The governor will be statutorily required to issue an order terminating the declaration in compliance with section 7301 if the House passes the resolution as adopted by the Senate,” tweeted GOP leadership spokesperson Jennifer Kocher. “He has no discretion in this matter.”
Former Gov. Tom Corbett (R) suggested he agreed with the Democrats’ interpretation in an interview when this resolution was moving through the House in May, and Elizabethtown College political science professor Kyle Kopko predicted the matter may end up being resolved in the courts.
Corman conceded the governor could issue a new emergency declaration that has narrower constraints and said Republicans would be happy to work with him on that, but he said that he refuses to become “comfortable” with the new normal Gov. Wolf has signaled is forthcoming.
“The governor is a good man. He and the Secretary of Health are doing absolutely everything they can to fight this virus,” said Corman. “It’s not about his interest and desire to keep the people of Pennsylvania healthy. This is a free society, a free society where we fought and died … for a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. If we become complacent and we allow our civil liberties to go away because of fear, they may never come back.”
State Sen. Andy Dinniman (D-Chester) acknowledged Republicans’ concerns about checks of balances, conceding, “Clearly, we do not have a balance of power that is appropriate.”
He suggested that a proposed constitutional amendment that would require legislative assent to a disaster emergency declaration after 30 days is a step he would support, and he also proposed a constitutional convention to address the balance of power between branches. But he said he could not support HR 836 because COVID-19 is still an active pandemic.
The proposed amendment to the state constitution is currently in the Senate as SB 1166 and passed the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday for possible consideration Wednesday. Amending Pennsylvania’s constitution requires approval by voters after passing both chambers of the legislature in two consecutive legislative sessions.
» PA Post is an independent newsroom covering policy and government in Pennsylvania. For more, go to www.papost.org. News Talk WMPT is an affiliate of PA Post.
FULL YAW FLOOR SPEECH:
I rise in support of House Resolution 836.
I would just like to make a few brief comments about this.
Never in the history of Pennsylvania or even the United States or perhaps the world have we quarantined the healthy in order to protect the sick.
I don’t understand that that’s an approach which has never been in history is never occurred.
We had the Spanish Flu which we’ve talked about the Spanish flu, and, and actually the coronavirus is said derivation of the strain that actually was the Spanish Flu.
At that time, there were 500 million people affected by the Spanish Flu. This was in 1918. That was about at that time was one third of the world population. There were 20 million deaths.
And yet we didn’t do anything like we’re doing today.
It might interest people to know that the Spanish Flu; there’s still no vaccine for it.
How did we cope with it?
We coped with it naturally by over a period of time the people in their immune system developed an immunity to it.
I grew up at a time when mumps, measles and chickenpox were prevalent. And the way that they were handled then is that if you got mumps or measles or chickenpox or something like that, you were quarantined you stayed at home.
There was a health officer came around and put a sign on your house. If you go on the internet now, there are people selling these signs for the historical value of them. That was the way that we did it. We quarantined the sick.
I also grew up in a time when most of the people here won’t remember in polio.
Polio was a was a devastating disease that affected about 35,000 people every year with a crippling deformity. What did we do? We quarantined the people who had that disease?
It might be interesting for people to note that on an average flu season in the United States 60,000 people died somewhere around that number in the 2017-2018 flu season we had 80,000 people died in the United States 80,000. And what’s interesting about that time is we had a vaccine.
Did we shut down the country. Did we shut down the state? Did we send everybody home to stay locked up?
The answer is no.
I don’t understand and will never answer it today why the publicity has gotten so great concerning this there’s no question about it. This is a devastating disease for certain people and it is perhaps worse for some in some situations.
The time when we started this whole process out nobody knew what was going on.
That is not the case any longer.
We know where the disease occurs.
We know who it attacks and we know how to deal with it.
The median age of a death in Pennsylvania is 84.
70 somewhere between seventy and eighty percent of the deaths come out of where or the cases come out of nursing homes.
We know where to focus the problem.
We expected a surge supposedly we had to flatten a curve.
That was why all hospitals had to be shut down at least more a month ago or perhaps a month and a half ago when UPMC finally said look we have 5,500 beds that are system less than 2% of them are around 2% of them are all that are devoted to coronavirus.
We’ve got to open up the system and get back to work.
I would also like to point out a couple of examples that occurred during the red phase.
I have a manufacturing facility in my district that employs 500 people. They worked everyday, 500 people worked everyday. Except for they had to shut down two weeks because their supply chain was cut off due to all of the other businesses being closed. The number of coronavirus cases they had in that that facility zero – none and that was during the so-called red phase.
We’ve heard the statistics again of UPMC which has 30 some Elderly Care Facilities; they had zero cases of Coronavirus.
Mr. President this is no longer an emergency.
This is turned into an endurance for Pennsylvania and the evidence just no longer supports restricting the rights of healthy individuals to be able to not do what they would normally do in a free society.
I think the time has come for individual responsibility and by that I mean; if a business doesn’t want to open fine don’t open if you don’t want to patronize the business, then don’t patronize a certain business that you don’t like.
If you’re afraid to go out of your house, then stay home, but it’s up to the individuals.
My constituents ask me all the time or tell me. All we want to do is treat us like adults. We have not been treated like adults in this entire process.
We don’t want babysitters to tell us everything that we need to do.
I have faith in the citizens of my district in the citizens of Pennsylvania and into citizens of the United States to make reasonable rational and responsible decisions concerning this crisis in the sickness that is out there. I think we need to trust those people.
I’m not only asking for an affirmative vote on house resolution 836; we cannot afford not to have an affirmative vote on house resolution 836.
