EDITORIAL: Let voters decide on governor’s authority

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Rep. Mark Owens, the Crane Republican whose district includes Baker County, thinks state law has given Gov. Kate Brown too much power to impose restrictions, under unilateral executive orders, during the pandemic. Owens believes no governor, regardless of party, should have that much authority.

But he doesn’t want either the executive or the legislative branch to decide whether to make changes. Owens, quite reasonably, thinks the matter should be up to voters.

Unfortunately not enough of his colleagues in the Democrat-controlled Legislature agree. Owens’ bill, House Joint Resolution 206, has stalled in the House Rules Committee. Owens said it won’t even get a hearing in Salem before the Legislature adjourns next month.

That’s a pity. Owens’ bill would ask voters to amend the state constitution to limit governors’ emergency declarations to 30 days and allow county officials to extend such declarations, or to get rid of aspects of such declarations.

It’s not likely that such an amendment would pass in Oregon, where a majority of voters are registered Democrats, the party that has offered little if any objection to Brown’s executive orders.

But voters should at least have a chance to decide whether to shift the balance of power away from fulcrum of Salem to the state’s 36 counties.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor