Kansas’ handling of its disaster declaration has been something of a disaster itself — imperiling federal aid as well as every one of the governor’s emergency orders.
Thanks to stumbling by the Legislature and squabbling between lawmakers and the governor’s office, on Wednesday it appeared that no one in state government had clear authority to extend the March 12 coronavirus emergency declaration past its current expiration date of May 1.
Without an extension, $17 million at the very least, or at worst hundreds of millions, in federal disaster aid would be in serious question, and Gov. Laura Kelly’s emergency orders — such as her statewide order to stay at home — would expire prematurely.
While admitting Wednesday that “we stand in a quandary,” the governor assured that “we’re looking at what options that we have.”
One, of course, is for the governor to simply issue a new disaster declaration. But her chief of staff, Will Lawrence, told The Star that’s not a very feasible option due to all the potential for bureaucratic burps between Topeka and Washington, D.C.
Lawrence said the governor’s legal team should come forward with a better option in the next week.
“In no way can we let those orders expire,” Kelly said.
Republicans blame Democrats. Democrats blame Republicans. But what really happened?
On March 19, when the Legislature approved and extended Kelly’s March 12 disaster declaration until May 1, there was peace across the land. But on April 7, when the governor included religious services among the banned mass gatherings in the state, Republican lawmakers — through the seven-member Legislative Coordinating Council — voted 5-2 along party lines to overturn the Democratic governor’s ban on large religious services.
Kelly took the Legislature to court and, on Easter eve, won.
The problem, Republican lawmakers say, is that the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision in that case essentially stripped the Legislative Coordinating Council’s authority to pass judgment on Kelly’s emergency orders. They say that includes the ability to extend her disaster declaration past May 1, which they might have done at a meeting Wednesday in which they ultimately delayed reconvening the full Legislature from Monday to a date uncertain in early to mid-May.
The seeds of this administrative disaster were sown when the Legislature arbitrarily decided to extend Kelly’s disaster declaration — but only until May 1. That went beyond legislative oversight to political overreach: There was simply no reason to limit the declaration that sharply. Other disaster declarations, for such things as floods, have lasted the better part of a year.
We understand checks and balances on executive power. Belief in limits on governmental power is deep within the American psyche. But the Legislature’s hastily written resolution ending the COVID-19 disaster declaration on May 1 — albeit passed unanimously in both chambers while fidgety lawmakers were leaving town for the coronavirus shutdown — has now put the state in a box, quite unnecessarily.
Republican lawmakers note that their unexpected inability to extend the declaration was caused by the governor’s lawsuit. Well, yes. But it was a lawsuit she won, on clear and convincing grounds: Lawmakers hadn’t even followed the legal protocols they set out in their own resolution.
Besides, it’s not a very persuasive argument to say the governor caught them speeding, since they were, in fact, speeding. That’s certainly not her fault.
