SACRAMENTO, Calif. — 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. The Democratic governor has used that broad authority to waive statutes and laws to facilitate testing and vaccination programs, and to ensure that California had enough capacity in hospitals to handle caseload surges.
