Taking to the floor of the Senate yesterday, Senator Joe Pittman delivered a passionate speech in support of a resolution to end Governor Tom Wolf’s emergency disaster declaration. His colleagues then voted to do just that, concurring with a House resolution that would end the state shutdown.
House Resolution 836 passed the Pennsylvania House on Tuesday evening. It was approved by the Senate earlier in the evening after being split along party lines.
According to the Republican-controlled legislature, the state constitution grants the General Assembly the veto-proof authority to terminate a state of disaster emergency at any time by concurrent resolution, but Wolf says he will veto it.
Speaking on the eve of the one-year anniversary of his taking office, Senator Pittman said that for the last three months, Wolf has had unlimited control of the state’s citizens and it’s economy, and it is time to take that power away. He says Wolf and his predecessors have for years “overreached” their authority, using executive orders and other means to seize power from the legislature.
The battle will inevitably end in the courts. Wolf says the constitution states that every order, resolution, or vote of the legislature is subject to veto. The General Assembly says a different section of the constitution gives them the right to terminate a disaster declaration at any time, and cites the 1978 emergency management services law and a 1985 Superior Court decision in a case having to do with criminal sentencing, which uses similar language to the new resolution.
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