The Hypocrisy of Gretchen Whitmer

Trying to balance electoral viability and political power, Whitmer is relying heavily on emergency orders while avoiding implementing lockdowns as Michigan struggles with another COVID outbreak.

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Last October, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer “lacked the authority to declare a ‘state of emergency’ or a ‘state of disaster’” under the Emergency Powers of the Governor Act (EPGA). The EPGA was further ruled to be in violation of the Michigan State Constitution because it “unlawfully delegates legislative power to the executive branch,” and “cannot continue to provide a basis for the Governor to exercise emergency powers.”

In short, all of the executive orders Gretchen Whitmer had ordered in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were unconstitutional, null, and void. Whitmer issued a scathing response, stating “I vehemently disagree with the court’s interpretation” and closing with a pledge: “I want the people of Michigan to know that no matter what happens, I will never stop fighting to keep you and your families safe from this deadly virus.” 

Days after the ruling, Whitmer issued new policies governing public gatherings and mask requirements through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS). Since then, Whitmer has adjusted these MDHHS mandates periodically.

MDHHS was not alone, as the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) began drafting new, non-emergency regulations. Among them were mask mandates and social distancing requirements impacting a broad swath of businesses, including gyms, bowling alleys, restaurants, bars, health care providers, and all sport and entertainment facilities, for employees and customers alike. 

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  1. Laurie

    This is the most disappointing, one-sided article the Dispatch has ever put out. The writer assumes the worst in the governor, even calling her responses to the aggressive taunting of the president, "her(!) public heated confrontations with then-president Trump," implying she was engaging with him for political gain. In fact, according to this author, every single decision Whitmer has made was for her own advancement. Maybe, maybe not, but why isn't every governor held to this standard? He doesn't even consider (or mention) the human calculus of how having armed protesters threatening you and a kidnapping plot against you might fit into this story. Politicians are, after all, human beings, not just political creatures.
    There is a huge difference in decisions made now and a year ago. Last year, we were fighting something we had never experienced before. We will learn from this and we will be better prepared next time. A year into this, we have heard all the voices and made our own decisions. The rise in cases here in Michigan now is on us, not the governor. She did what she did last year, and will be judged along with every other executive, including those at the other (lax) end of the spectrum. After a year she has given up trying to force compliance. Instead she strongly suggested a two week voluntary break to get ahead of this, (and cases are coming down). If anyone gets Covid now it's their own fault not their governor's, regardless of where they live.

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  2. Rational

    Like many governors, Whitmer has been all over the place during the pandemic. That is somewhat understandable in light of the lack of knowledge everyone has had at different phases and the incredible zig zagging approach of the CDC. She started out mostly all right. She did not do some of the crazy things other governors did (like trying to ban people from out of state from entering). Then, she got a little power crazy when she started to tell people whether they could go to second homes, that you could go to the garden part of a grocery store (Meijer, Walmart), but not a garden store, and saying that small motor boats were not okay to use, but large sail boats were. Not surprisingly, there was a political backlash, as there should have been. All the while she was preening for the cameras and engaging in a lot of anti-Trump drama. Now, she has finally got the message. The Supreme Court, the legislature, and the electorate have told her she over-stepped. As a result, she is moderating herself even though the CDC would have her make everyone hide under their beds again. She is doing what politicians are supposed to do when the electorate and the courts speak: listen. It is too late, but it hardly seems like we should excoriate her now for what she should have done in the first place.

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    Johntadian

    Here's a proposal: By June, we should have more vaccines than requesters. Virtually anyone not vaccinated will, theoretically, be so out of choice. So, July 4th, everything reopens. If you're vaccinated, no problem. If not, be free to build us up to herd immunity, or prove us all government shills. I don't care. I'm vaccinated. But, expecting us to sit in this limbo is not sustainable. There must be some end game where Governor One-Term cedes power.

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      Pat Riot

      But that's not how it works. If enough people don't get vaccinated we will *not* achieve herd immunity and we *will* breed a new bug that will bypass our current vaccines that will restart the clock to March of 2020.

      The solution is vaccine passports in every form. Restaurants should require proof of vax, all schools and colleges should require them, all workplaces, etc.

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        Logical

        In mid Feb, India was a success story. In just 1 1/2 months it turned into an uncontrollable conflagration.

        It can happen here with the vaccine wall. If new variants take hold, we may be back to square one.

        MAGA can kill us.

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          Johntadian

          That's a big "if".

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        Johntadian

        First, you have no idea how many people are carrying antibodies from previous exposure (since many cases have less syptoms than the flu), making herd immunity percentages unknowable. That is all conjectural. What is not conjectural is the damage that's being done to the physical, mental and economic conditions of this country under these, contitutionally-questionable government mandates.
        Vaccine passports? Oh jeez, what could possibly go wrong with those.

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          Pat Riot

          Sure, nobody knows exactly, but we certainly *do* know that more vaccinated people is better than less, and we know that an unvaccinated population can and has produced variants of the bug.

          Allowing private businesses to transact with whomever they wish is not, "constitutionally questionable".

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            Johntadian

            Allowing private businesses to transact with whomever they wish is not, "constitutionally questionable".
            Allowing, or not allowing?

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    Johntadian

    "...a whopping $67 billion proposed budget for the next fiscal year."
    An increase of 5 Billion dollars, after a year of a crushed, virus-ravaged economy, government-exacerbated unemployment, and no anticipated timeline for Governor One-Term to give up her powers, so the state can start to return to some level of normalcy (at least to the level of some surrounding states). Whoever is in charge of optics, for the entire democrat party, is either some evil genius or wildly insane.

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    Saied

    She could consider educating her citizens. Until they are at 60% - 70% vaccination, Closed, Crowded, and Close (3Cs), BAD. Everything else, in all likelihood ok. How hard is this?

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    Rochejaquelein

    Public Choice Theory is generally used for sophisticated analysis of the intersection between industry or special interest groups, the Administrative state and democrat politics. It can be used to explain, for example, "regulatory capture" of government bodies by the groups they are supposed to regulate.

    Public Choice Theory is generally neither necessary nor commonly invoked when the subject is simply "there is a politician, and that politician is up for election soon, and they would rather win than lose". This is really the only way the article invokes the theory, and it smacks of You Tube commentary grade academic term dropping for the sake of it.

    I am not familiar with the details of the situation in Michigan, but this article comes across as pretty weak in its arguments and over the top in its tone.

    [For an endlessly entertaining guide to actual public choice theory, the old British sitcom "Yes Minister" beloved of Mrs. Thatcher was built around popularizing the concept]

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    Xaveria

    This is all so difficult. On one hand, the Democrats are in power now, and they can't be given a pass forever because of what the Republicans did in the past. I can't handle another four years of replacing "but Hilary's emails" with "but Trump." I'm sure that Ms. Whitmer overreached and vacillated, and blundered and all the like, and she should be called on it.

    But on the other hand, listening to my poor beloved father, who only listens to certain right-wing bloggers, say, with such satisfaction the other day, "See, I told you that the CDC is crooked. Look at Michigan. They did everything that Fauci told them to, and they have the worst Covid numbers in the country."

    When I dug for more details, neither of my parents knew about the massive armed anti-mask protests in Michigan, my mother hadn't heard of the kidnapping plot, and my father thought it was fake news. It is just so galling, after watching the New Right try to sabotage the Michigan pandemic response for a year, to watch them turn around and claim that Michigan's failure proves that they were right all along.

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      Jason Gibson

      I do not disagree with anything that you typed here. But I still come down very hard on Governor Whitmer. I think that’s the most frustrating thing quite frankly that there are many people that don’t listen to me because of my position on lockdowns because they assume that I am a Trumpist

      Most of the blame for the handling of COVID-19 goes to President Trump there is no doubt about that.

      But I am not in the habit of then excusing the chief executive of a state for making bad decisions because the president dropped the ball

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  8. Anonymous

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    1. AS Upstate

      I don't know anyone who wears a mask because it makes them feel more righteous. Pretty much everyone I know is wearing masks because people are still dying and our kids are not vaccinated yet. Pretty simple.

      That said, I think people should feel righteous if they keep wearing masks when they are sick and on an airplane or bus! But I guess that's in the "lets be reasonable category."

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      1. Anonymous

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          Jason Gibson

          Agree that WAS true. Now we are getting variants. That’s why every adult needs to get vaccinated.

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        2. AS Upstate

          Kids are at risk - almost 300 kids have died of COVID in the US as of late February. That's about the same number of young children who died of the flu in 2018-2019. I certainly don't think we should prevent any kid from ever getting sick again - but I definitely think we should try to create a world where no child ever dies of the flu, or COVID - like like no American kid dies of polio anymore. Is that worth more social distancing or mask mandates? I don't know, but I don't think the position is "nuts," as you say.

          I'm lucky - I live in a rural area and my kids go to a school with a ton of outdoor space. The kids wear masks inside, and started to take them off outside as it became clear that transmission outside was rare. The kids are really resilient and adaptable - they just deal with the masks without much complaint (especially on the cold days). Of course we can't mask forever - but would we mask for the next few months to save one kid's life? What do you think?

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            Jason Gibson

            They are at risk NOW. I agree with that

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          2. Anonymous

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    Pat Riot

    It's absolutely bonkers that we're reading a story that matter-of-factly states that one half of our political system is a suicide cult that favors what a deadly virus favors because doing so makes the other side angry.

    Republicans are desperately trying to get into the weeds of every tactical decision made by Democratic governors, but history is going to remember the president who downplayed the virus and caused the deaths of a half million Americans.

    Some individual governors and other officials will be viewed as unsuccessful generals in WWII--Trump and the Republicans will be viewed as the Germans and the Japanese.

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      Johntadian

      Wow. Godwins law right out of the box. This might be a Dispatch record.

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        Pat Riot

        Wow, another one who doesn't know how analogies work. Sad.

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          Johntadian

          I know how analogies work. Even the lame, reductionist ones.

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          Pat Riot

          And it's especially amusing that "Godwin's law" has been extended to any mention of WWII in any context. Cancel culture indeed.

          But fine, I'll use WWI next time to keep you snowflakes from melting...

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      Richard Maxton

      You win no points and your arguments are dismissed immediately once you pull the "they're Nazi's" card.

      You're always hyper-partisan Pat. Even so - this is too far.

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      1. Ryan

        You're talking to the guy who regularly uses his soapbox to fantasize about the death of his political opponents, declare everyone against his favored policy a traitor or a nazi, and who thinks Cancel culture is somebody taking exception to his unhinged ramblings.
        I appreciate what you were trying to do, but a lost cause is a lost cause!

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          Richard Maxton

          I'm nothing if not persistant.
          #HopelessOptimist

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          Pat Riot

          Are you talking about Trump? I'm lost.

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          1. Ryan

            I know you are

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        Pat Riot

        Sorry for triggering you. I'll use a different example next time and make exactly the same point. I guess some people can't understand analogies these days.

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          Richard Maxton

          ha. I'm not "triggered". And I understand analogies just fine. I think that Republicans (even those who made poor decisions regarding COVID-19) are not at all analogous to a political party attempting to commit genocide and conquer much of the world.

          I also think it's well recognized that comparing our politicians (on either side) to Nazis is out-of-bounds in reasonable conversations.

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            Pat Riot

            Yep, and there's simply no way of reading what I wrote to make that analogy.

            Any fair, non-triggered reading would have interpreted my statement the same way had I used WWI, Star Wars or sports (pick one of those and I'll rewrite it with that analogy instead).

            But per the above, just to be clear for next time, is using anything in conversation that has anything to do with World War II now off limits? Godwin's law specifically cites Hitler and Nazis, so I wasn't aware of this new extension of the idea...

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  10. BMW

    I don't like Whitmer that much, but I'm not really buying the drunk on power analysis. I think that's a very uncharitable assessment of her work as governor. I'm not saying that I think all her policies are good, just that there other more charitable explanations for what she's done.

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      CVS

      What -other- explanation do you give for her doing things that plainly are way, way, way beyond what "the science," even so far as it goes, would mandate?

      There aren't many good ones. The only possible one I can come up with is that her base wants her to. But that's just a different version of the same thing, really.

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      1. BMW

        I take issue with that characterization of the executive/MDHHS orders. There has been a lot of coronavirus sickness and death in Mi, and she tried to solve it with restrictions. I think there's a compelling case that we ended up with the downsides of the sickness and the downsides of the restrictions, but I don't think that there's a compelling case that she enacted all these restrictions because she just likes to flex her executive muscles. I live in Mi, and I've been following what's going on with the pandemic and reading the orders as they came out, and I've generally found that there is a coherent strategy. I think criticizing that strategy is fair (and maybe even necessary here), but claiming that she's just power-hungry is a bold accusation, and IMO not backed up with sufficient evidence.

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      Jason Gibson

      To be fair I’m not sure I buy that analysis either. Or at least I am not wedded to that term. However to say that she is a good governor or that she has handled this well is just quite a stretch to me.

      I get that it’s a big job to have to be the person in charge you have to worry about the economics and the psychological health and the social health of the state or at least that’s what we seem to ask governors to do.

      But that also means that we don’t grade them on a curve. She is not a good governor she has not done a good job. It doesn’t have to be personal. Just stop praising her please

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