SACRAMENTO — An effort by Republican state lawmakers to end Gov. Gavin Newsom’s COVID-19 state of emergency was blocked in the Democratic-controlled California Legislature on Tuesday.
For more than a year, GOP lawmakers have accused the governor of abusing his executive powers to respond to the crisis and asked legislators to vote to end the emergency in a state Senate committee hearing Tuesday, arguing the declaration was no longer necessary and constituted government overreach.
The Newsom administration has said that the more than 2-year-old state of emergency must stay in place to continue the state’s pandemic response.
State Sen. Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) said that it’s the Legislature’s responsibility as a co-equal branch of government to change the laws and statutes necessary to address the pandemic and that lawmakers have had more than two years to do so.
Melendez’s resolution failed in the Senate’s governmental operations committee by a 4-8 vote, split along party lines.
Since he declared a state of emergency on March 4, 2020, Newsom has issued 70 executive orders involving the COVID-19 pandemic.
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