COLORADO: Rethinking emergency powers should be high on legislature’s list.

Looks like we are crawling out of our home arrests. Which also means the Colorado legislative season will soon restart, too.

Since some are predicting a resurgence of COVID as the weather grows cold again in the fall, the legislature should learn from our recent experiences and use their prolonged session to adjust our laws for the next potential “emergency.”

Here are three suggestions for the legislature to tackle immediately.

Only elected officials should have emergency powers: Many of us were surprised to learn that unelected bureaucrats had the authority to place us under house arrest.

Before Gov. Polis ordered his statewide lockdown order, the tri-county health department, servicing Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties, ordered businesses closed and people locked in their homes. They did so over the objections of elected county commissioners whom they supposedly answer to.

It is unthinkable that under current law technocrats with no direct accountability to the people have such unchecked power. No one who can’t be voted out of office or recalled should have the power to declare emergencies and rip away basic liberties.

We have a Democrat assembly and a Democrat governor, so the odds of reform are minuscule.