By Assemblyman Kevin Kiley – October 18, 2022
esterday, Newsom announced he’s finally doing what we’ve been trying to get him to do for 800 days. He is ending the COVID-19 State of Emergency.
But of course, there’s a catch: he isn’t ending it today. He’s ending it on February 28, 2023. That will be just under three years from the day it began.
There’s plenty of room for speculation as to why Newsom is announcing this now and why he’s absurdly scheduled it for a specific day next February. Perhaps he realized that campaigning for higher office during an “emergency” would seem untoward.
In any case, it is an important victory – an acknowledgment that emergencies are not permanent and that autocracy is not the American way. But it should have happened at any of these earlier dates:
- May 21, 2020: I introduced a Resolution to terminate the State of Emergency
- June 11, 2020: Gallagher and I sued Newsom for abusing his emergency powers
- Nov. 2, 2020: We won the trial and secured a restraining order against Newsom
- Mar. 15, 2021: I introduced a new Resolution to terminate the Emergency
- Feb. 10, 2022: We forced a vote on the Assembly Floor to end the Emergency, right before LA hosted the Super Bowl.
Through it all, we worked to empower local communities to chart their own course, unencumbered by Newsom’s decrees. 13 counties passed our Healthy Communities Resolution and became sanctuaries for liberty in the most oppressive of times.
While we’ve at last ended this era of one-man, what comes next is even more important. We must make sure it never happens again.
Help me restore liberty and self-government
