Is it an emergency when you're losing an argument? North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper thinks it is; he declared "a state of emergency for public education" because state lawmakers propose what he calls "extreme legislation" regarding education choice, funding, and curriculum. While Cooper claims no extraordinary powers, his performative declaration underlines warnings by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, published just days earlier, that government officials have become entirely too accustomed to issuing emergency decrees to bypass normal debate and to suppress dissent, and that civil liberties have suffered as a result.
