Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett has introduced legislation to repeal the 1945 law that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used to enforce her executive orders and the state Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional.
House Minority Leader Christine Greig defended the law.
“The ruling said not that the whole law was unconstitutional, it said the standards by which you use this law need to be more specific,” said House Minority Leader Christine Greig, D-Farmington Hills, according to the MIRS news site. “So, we as a Legislature have been operating under this law for 75 years to have this as an additional tool for fighting emergencies such as this. The actions of the governor have saved tens of thousands of lives. And by repealing this without fixing it, according to the Supreme Court, you are putting the lives of Michiganders at risk if, God forbid, we face additional emergencies or we have a second wave of this COVID.”
Greig is inaccurate about the state Supreme Court’s ruling. It states this about the 1945 law known as the Emergency Powers of the Governor Act of 1945 (EPGA): “Therefore, the EPGA is unconstitutional in its entirety.”
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.