Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer needs a Constitution 101 refresher.
The Democratic governor, who has been heavily criticized for passing extreme, arbitrary social distancing restrictions, declared during a press conference on Wednesday that she alone has the right to decide when the state is in a state of emergency and when it is not. Her comment was a not-so-subtle jab at the Republican-controlled state legislature — a vital branch of government that not only has the right to check Whitmer’s authority, but the responsibility to grant and withhold that power from Whitmer as they see fit.
Indeed, the state legislature is supposed to sign off on any extension of Whitmer’s emergency powers this Friday. And Whitmer has been nothing but antagonistic toward her legislative counterparts.
Republicans had proposed a compromise, which Whitmer publicly released without the lawmakers’ permission. The GOP’s offer was a fair trade: two one-week extensions of Whitmer’s emergency powers “in exchange for a public agreement that all future stay-at-home-type orders (and only those) be enacted through bipartisan legislation and the democratic process rather than executive order,” according to an email sent by state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey’s chief of staff, Jeremy Henges.
Whitmer didn’t just privately reject this compromise; she publicly released her staff’s email exchanges with GOP lawmakers, denounced the state legislature in a press conference, and then invited AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber to insult state Republicans and former Gov. Rick Snyder. She then tried to claim the high ground, arguing she doesn’t have time to “engage in political negotiations.”
To the state Republicans, who lawfully hold Whitmer’s emergency powers in their hands, Whitmer had one thing to say: “Michigan remains in a state of emergency, regardless of the actions you decide to take or not to take.”
This isn’t a surprise to anyone familiar with Whitmer’s playbook. She’s never been one for compromise. Last year, she abandoned the bargaining table during negotiations over the state’s budget and blamed the ensuing “mess” on the Republican lawmakers who had held up their end of the deal by passing a bipartisan series of budget bills. When the state legislature moved forward without her, Whitmer issued line-item vetoes on close to $1 billion in spending, bringing construction and roadwork to a halt across the state.
Whitmer thinks she’s a one-woman government with an exhaustive list of powers in her pocket. She’s unable to build a consensus within her state not because she couldn’t do so with effort, but because she doesn’t think consensus is necessary.
This public health crisis has required a stronger executive response than usual, but it seems pretty clear that this has gone to Whitmer’s head. She is overstepping her bounds. Leadership requires compromise and humility, and if she can’t work with the state’s lawmakers (officials elected by and for the people of Michigan), then she has no business being governor.
