EDITORIAL: Sisolak finally loosens grip on ‘emergency’ order

We’re not yet to the finish line, but Gov. Steve Sisolak last week announced that Nevadans will soon no longer be living under a public health emergency. The move is months overdue.

The governor issued his emergency declaration on March 12, 2020, as the coronavirus took hold, giving him expanded powers to act unilaterally in combating COVID-19. Gov. Sisolak will finally allow the order to lapse on May 20, almost 800 days later.

Gov. Sisolak’s decision will likely come as a surprise to many Silver State residents, who have been going about their regular business for many months now even as the state has remained on this highly unusual footing for much longer than necessary.

Nevada was among the last states to lift its mask mandate, dropping the edict in February. Likewise with the emergency declaration. The National Academy for State Health Policy reports that, as of May 1, Nevada was one of only 15 states — including California and New York — that had yet to lift its emergency edict.

“The COVID-19 pandemic tried and tested our state on every level,” Gov. Sisolak said in a statement on his decision to end his order. “By working together across all levels of government and in every corner of the state, we prevented our health care system from becoming overwhelmed and continued to provide services to Nevadans in need.”

But any emergency that had “overwhelmed” the state’s public health system had long since passed. Meanwhile, routine commerce, schooling, the casinos and sporting events had many months ago returned to near normalcy. Yet the governor offered no explanation for why it took him so long to shelve the emergency declaration. The likely answer is the simplest: He was under no obligation to rescind it.

Nevada is an outlier among the 50 states in that the Legislature, under statute, has ceded much of its authority to the executive branch during times of public health crises and other emergencies. The law places few limits on the governor’s powers nor does it demand that such declarations be renewed every so often with approval from lawmakers. In short, the governor — absent judicial intervention — has a blank check.

That’s dangerous and unhealthy regardless of which party holds power, and it is problematic in a democratic republic that depends on checks and balances. When lawmakers reconvene in February they should revisit Nevada’s emergency statutes and, at a minimum, require that the governor receive periodic approval from the Legislature for the imposition and extension of any such orders in the future.