New Jersey lawmakers are likely to take up some form of legislation to alter a state law that instilled Gov. Phil Murphy with the sweeping emergency powers he used to issue lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine requirements during the coronavirus pandemic the last two years, the new leader of the state Senate said Friday.
Senate President Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, told NJ Advance Media he has even spoken to Murphy, a fellow Democrat, about “revisiting” the Emergency Health Powers Act of 2005 sometime “in the future.”
The comments come as a few Republican lawmakers and one Democratic colleague are pushing a bill that would curtail the emergency powers of any New Jersey governor and give the state Legislature a greater say in such matters.
Scutari said he doubts that bill will be the one to advance because he’s already “seen some things I’d like to change about it.”
Instead, he suggested, there would be a new proposal — though it won’t happen immediately because he doesn’t want it to “seem like we’re doing it in reaction.”
“I’ve been working on a bill myself to do that,” Scutari said during an interview at his legislative office in Linden. “But I don’t want that to be reactionary. I think we are coming to the end of this pandemic. We’re reaching endemic stages. And I think the governor’s done a very good job with handling it. But at this point in time, we’re coming to the end and I think people are tired of this.”
“We are going to revisit that,” he added about the law.
The Emergency Health Powers Act gives New Jersey’s governor broad authority to take action during a public-health crisis, without needing the Legislature’s approval. Murphy cited it frequently as he signed executive orders to combat COVID-19, which spread rapidly through New Jersey in the beginning of 2020 and has since killed more than 30,000 residents.
Last month, Murphy used the statute to declare a new public-health emergency to fight the recent wave driven by the omicron variant of the virus. That included the authority to keep the state’s school mask mandate in place.
Scutari did not specify what he’d want to change about the law. But he said “I think we’re gonna look at this entire response over the last two years and do a revisit of the things that were done right and the things that were done wrong and how we can improve on that.”
“And I think that aspect of that will definitely be revisited and probably altered by virtue of legislation,” he said.
Scutari added it’s important to balance the power between the executive branch and the legislative branch.
“It always seems to kind of migrate to the executive side,” he said. “Passing a bill to strip away some of those powers in the future, I think that’s probably gonna happen.”
Any bill would have to pass both houses of the Legislature — the Senate and Assembly — and be signed by the governor to become law.
Republicans have argued for months that Murphy has wielded too much unilateral control during the pandemic, sidelining lawmakers in the process. Murphy has repeatedly said the goal has been to save as many lives as possible from the contagious virus.
Previous Republican-sponsored bills to curb the governor’s powers have gone nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Legislature the last two years. But Democrats have appeared more cautious since a contentious November election in which their party kept control of both houses of the Legislature but Republicans gained seven seats.
Murphy issued the new public-health emergency last month when Democratic leaders of the Legislature declined his request to extend some of his remaining powers that were set to expire at the beginning of the year.
Then, Republicans announced Monday that Democratic state Sen. Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth, has signed on a co-sponsor of a bill (S1200) that would limit the length a New Jersey governor could declare a state of emergency and public-health emergency to 60 days, unless the Legislature approves an extension. It would also give lawmakers the authority to terminate either emergency declaration if two-thirds of the Legislature vote to do so.
Currently, a state of emergency lasts until the governor lifts it. Under the Emergency Health Powers Act, a public-health emergency expires after 30 days, though the governor can keep issuing renewals every 30 days.
Gopal — who narrowly won re-election in November — said in a statement Thursday he is backing the bill to make sure the Legislature is a co-equal branch of government and keep “a check and balance of power,” regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is governor.
“If the governor was Republican and the bill was the exact same, I question how many of my Republican colleagues would or wouldn’t support the same bill because of the party of their governor,” Gopal said. “The residents of Monmouth County want their elected leaders to move away from that type of partisanship.”
State Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, who sponsored the Emergency Health Powers Law, said the 2005 statute was written in the wake of 9/11 to help prepare the state for a pandemic or bioterrorism crisis. He said he I’d against the push to soften it.
“Fast forward to today, all of the angst around the policies, whether they are consistent or inconsistent or embraced by the public or not, we have to have this process in place,” Vitale said. “The notion a legislature, even by a two-thirds vote, would have the ability to halt a public-health emergency or require the governor to come back for permission to continue it, I have concerns with.”
The omicron surge has been subsiding in recent weeks. It’s unclear whether Murphy will extend the new public-health emergency another 30 days when it expires Feb. 10. He said Wednesday he would discuss the issue with lawmakers.
Scutari confirmed that Murphy did discuss the matter during a meeting with legislative leaders Thursday but declined to provide details about a private conversation.
“I’ll say this: I’m a firm believer that, yes, we need to start rolling everything back and get back to normalcy,” the Senate president said. “Because people believe that and the science is showing that.”
Republicans on Thursday also launched a publicity campaign called “Give it Back,” in hopes of pressuring Murphy to relinquish some of his powers, return some revenue to taxpayers, and more.
Senate Minority Leader Steven Oroho, R-Sussex, said this is “an opportunity” for New Jerseyans “to tell Gov. Murphy, in a unified voice, to give back everything he has taken from them over the past two years.”
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Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @johnsb01.
Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco.