State Executive Orders: Nuance in Restrictions, Revealing Suspensions, and Decisions to Enforce

Abstract

In the absence of a large‐scale federal response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, state and local elected officials have enacted executive orders that include restrictions on public liberties as well as the suspension of rules and regulations. While these restrictive policy actions have received extensive media attention, the suspensions, including regulatory rollbacks, waivers, and extensions, are lesser known. This Viewpoint essay offers insight from a working database that captures the nuance and variation across restrictions, suspensions, and enforcement mechanisms being utilized at the state level.

Collective action during the Covid-19 pandemic: The case of Germany’s fragmented authority

“…In the U.S. (Carter & May, 2020), in contrast to Germany, individual states adopted different approaches to handling the pandemic, which undermined people's trust in public institutions (Curley & Federman, 2020;. The lack of federal leadership hampered communication among decision-makers.…”

Tensions in State–Local Intergovernmental Response to Emergencies: The Case of COVID-19

“…As shown in the figures above and in line with the expected intergovernmental response to emergencies and disasters, many U.S. cities passed laws to protect public safety and health in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, many governors also responded to the pandemic with executive orders (more than 1,000 executive orders and/or agency orders have been issued about COVID-19, see Curley and Federman (2020) for more information), in some cases preempting their cities from taking action. In the 43 gubernatorial executive orders ordering states to stay-at-home or shelter in place, we observe 20 orders preempting local ordinances that order local sheltering in place or locally defined essential activity/business.…”

Global Reflection, Conceptual Exploration, and Evidentiary Assimilation: COVID‐19 Viewpoint Symposium Introduction

“…It is in these variations that future research lies. Applying Kettl's (2020) federalism logic, Curley and Federman (2020) collected and analyzed a variety of state executive orders dealing with the pandemic. The authors find differences in enforcement, restriction, and suspension, and within the essay, they outline future research that can explain the results of these variations.…”