eforming the Emergency Management Act is about good governance, regardless of who resides in the governor’s mansion. No individual should have the power unilaterally to deprive citizens of their liberty for an extended period. Reforms would still allow for rapid responses for true emergencies.
Even though state agencies craft rules on authority given them by the General Assembly, it's very difficult for the legislature to disapprove a rule. HB 327, a bill to clarify the process by which legislators can review rules, should add the legislative rules ratification process that's worked well in Florida for over a decade.
On March 17, 2020, Gov. Cooper used emergency powers to shut down restaurants and bars to in-person eating and drinking, and he did so without concurrence from the Council of State, as required by the EMA. Cooper then claimed authority elsewhere in state law, setting a dangerous precedent that legislators must fix by reforming the EMA.
Part 3 of this series provides the data from the CDC and DHHS used to make the graph. It uses a sample week to demonstrate how to apply the data. The hope here is to bring more clarity to what is a very real threat still facing North Carolinians.
An analysis of CDC estimates and DHHS deaths data for North Carolina finds that North Carolina has been witnessing more excess deaths than COVID deaths. These worrisome findings seem to confirm research and experts' warnings about the potential net deadlier effects of government lockdowns and severe personal and business restrictions, such as from Gov. Roy Cooper's executive orders.
Data from the CDC and DHHS showed that NC was suffering excess deaths without even counting COVID-19 deaths, but DHHS data reporting is so far behind, it's incomplete after late September. Meanwhile, Gov. Roy Cooper was steadily increasing restrictions on people and businesses heedlessly.
Last week South Dakota became the ninth state to pass universal license recognition since 2019. Bill language introduced last year before the General Assembly would offer a way for North Carolina to join those reform states.
North Carolina's archaic certificate-of-need laws leave the state with significant deficits in psychiatric hospitals and substance abuse facilities — and higher prices. North Carolina should join the 15 other states that eliminated certificate-of-need laws.
Gov. Roy Cooper's business shutdowns and restrictions amount to a regulatory taking depriving business owners of the use of their property. Lawmakers should reform eminent domain to include compensation for regulatory takings.
Regulatory dark matter are "rules" we don't know are rules — policies, guidelines, interpretive statements, etc. that state agencies enforce against people as if they were rules. There's no telling how much regulatory dark matter there is in North Carolina. Legislators should require agencies to identify regulatory dark matter and either repeal or formally adopt them, and they already have the language to do so.
