Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s latest coronavirus executive order is not sitting well with many Wolverine State voters and their elected officials.
On Friday, Whitmer, a Democrat, issued an executive order extending and expanding her previous shelter-in-place order through April 30. The original order, issued March 23, was set to expire April 13.
While the original order required Michiganders to stay home except for certain “essential” activities such as working, buying food, and caring for elderly relatives, it still permitted people to visit other family members or to travel to other residences they own in the state. Whitmer’s new order bans both “all private and public gatherings of any number of people occurring among persons not part of a single household” and traveling between residences.
The new order also imposes harsher restrictions on businesses, prohibiting stores that sell “essential” items from also selling — or even advertising — “nonessential” ones, including such things as furniture, paint, and garden supplies. It further demands that stores strictly limit the number of customers permitted inside and require those lined up outside to stand six feet apart.
State legislators, at least on the GOP side of the aisle, are becoming increasingly critical of Whitmer’s edicts, which they consider too extreme.
“OUR Governor IS DESTROYING OUR HEALTH BY KILLING OUR LIVELIHOODS!” state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey shouted on Facebook. He repeated the comment twice, albeit with fewer uppercase words, “because,” he explained, “I am obsessed with making sure everyone understands what’s happening.”
Shirkey urged Michiganders to contact Whitmer “and tell her if she wants us to follow and trust her … she needs to trust us!”
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State House Speaker Lee Chatfield observed on Twitter that while Whitmer has outlawed “lawn care, construction, fishing if boating with a motor, realtors, buying seeds, home improvement equipment & gardening supplies,” she has allowed to continue such “essential” businesses as “marijuana, lottery & alcohol” — all sales, one might add, from which the state gets a significant deal of revenue.
“Let’s be safe & reasonable,” added Chatfield. “Right now, we’re not!”
Whitmer “continues to go to radical extremes,” state Representative Michele Hoitenga said on Facebook. She later commented that she is “highly concerned about the health toll this is taking on everyone.”
At the federal level, Michigan Congressman Justin Amash (formerly a Republican; now an Independent) posted a thoughtful critique of Whitmer’s order on Facebook:
“Governor Whitmer’s latest order goes too far and will erode confidence in her leadership,” he wrote. “She should immediately reassess it.”
“Sensible instructions to practice social distancing, wear masks, and stay at home already do most of the work to reduce the virus’s spread. By pushing too far, the governor undermines her own authority and increases the likelihood people will not follow reasonable guidelines,” Amash added.
He also cautioned against “unintended and undesired consequences” of such dictates as drastically limiting the number of customers inside a store, thereby creating long lines outside. And he suggested that the governor let “communities and businesses … establish safety procedures based on actual conditions.” While Michigan has the third-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the nation (if the test results are to be believed), the vast majority of them are concentrated in the Detroit area. Safety precautions that might be necessary in that part of the state are overkill in other parts.
Voters, too, are becoming fed up with Whitmer’s increasing — and increasingly capricious — assaults on their constitutional liberties. An online petition demanding that Whitmer be recalled or impeached over her response to COVID-19, among other things, has garnered over 170,000 signatures in three weeks.
Such criticism has done little to change Whitmer’s mind. “We must remain steady,” she tweeted Saturday. “We can’t allow fear or panic to guide us. The lives of Michiganders are at stake.”
Indeed they are, and Whitmer’s edicts, which reek of fear and panic, may be costing more lives, particularly in the long run, than they save.
Moreover, Michiganders’ freedom to assemble, travel, do business, and otherwise engage in previously lawful pursuits is also at stake. Once the government gets away with restricting these liberties once, even briefly, it is only a matter of time before such restrictions become broader and longer — and perhaps even permanent.
Photo: AP Images
Michael Tennant is a freelance writer and regular contributor to The New American.
