Gov. Newsom Ends Statewide COVID-19 State Of Emergency

Governor Gavin Newsom officially ended California’s COVID-19 state of emergency on Tuesday, shutting down a nearly three-year-old order that had temporarily given the Governor broader authorities and more power during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Begun in March 2020, the State of Emergency initially saw widespread acceptance, as most Californians agreed that the state needed to rapidly improve on everything from hospital capacity to vaccine development to assisting those who were temporarily out of work due to most businesses being shut down. However, the order became more controversial in the latter half of 2020 and into 2021. With the Assembly and Senate being out intermittently due to COVID outbreaks, Governor Newsom routinely made more autocratic decisions, with many COVID-19 and governmental issues coming down to a single yes or no from Newsom.

Court cases were filed that challenged Newsoms’s emergency powers. Many in the state legislature also attempted to remove or limit Newsom’s powers under the order, but efforts attempting to end the state of emergency ended when the Assembly failed to get enough votes to pass necessary legislation. While his emergency powers were late limited in February 2022, the order nonetheless stayed in place with critical parts, such as powers over vaccine distribution, still intact. The order itself also continue to be extended over and over again by the state legislature.

But, as case and death rates continued to decline throughout 2022 and the state adopting more plans for an endemic COVID-19, more people began questioning why the state of emergency was even needed anymore as the situation rapidly improved statewide. This led to Newsom’s October announcement that the next extension would be the last, and that the COVID-19 state of Emergency would be ending in February 2023. Continual low COVID-19 rates in the winter of 2022-2023 continued to quash any last minute emergency changes with Newsom officially announcing an end to the state of emergency on Tuesday, only a few days before the third year anniversary of the order.

The end of the COVID-19 State of Emergency

In an emergency proclamation released on Tuesday, Newsom said that “I, Gavin Newsom, Governor of the State of California, having found pursuant to Government Code section 8629 that the conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property declared in the State of Emergency proclamation listed below no longer exist, therefore proclaim that the State of Emergency proclaimed on the following date and in the following jurisdiction no longer exists, effective at 11 :59 p.m. on February 28, 2023. Accordingly, any Executive Orders related to the terminated State of Emergency will also no longer be in effect as of 11 :59 p.m. on February 28, 2023.

I further direct that as soon as hereafter possible, this Proclamation be filed in the Office of the Secretary of State and that widespread publicity and notice be given of this Proclamation.

Newsom also added in a press release that “California is better prepared and that’s because we have a serious Legislature and the health ecosystem in California is second to none in the country.

The press release itself was also full of potshots at states like Texas and Florida, with Newsom pulling statistics to try and show that his way of dealing with the pandemic through the state of emergency order was ultimately better. In it, he noted that California’s COVID-19 death rate was among the lowest in the nation and that nationally the COVID-19 death rate was 339 per 100,000, far above California’s rate.

If California had Texas’ death rate, 27,000 more people would have died here,” noted the press release. “If California had Florida’s rate, 56,000 more people would have died here.”

Many applauded the end of the State of Emergency on Tuesday, although many also noted that the order should have been removed months, even years ago due to how much power it had given Governor Newsom.

“Newsom spent all of Tuesday trying to justify what he did with the order in place,” explained COVID-19 policy researcher Doug Zahn to the Globe on Monday. “Granted there was some good, especially early on. It was a real emergency, and he used emergency powers to help set everything up early on and prepare the state as the crisis got worse. He just didn’t give up that power and was virtually running the state on his own at times. That’s not great. Things like Newsom flaunting his own orders he made under the emergency order, most notably at the French Laundry in November 2020, really turned the public against him. It seemed to have gone to his head at times.”

But as COVID receded, as all pandemics do, his justifications for keeping the order got flimsier and flimsier until October, where one last extension was given just in case COVID rebounded. Thankfully, that never happened.”

The emergency order is going to be a divisive part of his legacy. And if he runs for President in the future, he is going to really have to answer some tough questions around it. Every Governor had to deal with COVID-19 in some way. But he did it in such a different and more controlling way that it will raise more than a few eyebrows.”

In addition to the state order, many City state of emergencies, such as the one in San Diego, are also to end on Tuesday.