Virus’ ‘side effects’ include controversial government actions

Bill Knight column for 5-18, 19 or 20, 2020

Leaders can use a crisis to push political agendas unrelated to the emergency, and executive power can expand, big-time. Historically, unilateral changes might have seemed logical but disturbing, from Lincoln's suspending habeas corpus and Roosevelt’s incarcerating Japanese Americans, to George W. Bush after 9-11 launching two wars, the PATRIOT Act, torture and unrestricted detention of foreign suspects.

Now, governments try to enforce public-health restrictions and comply with public-access laws, but the Trump administration is trying to upend federal policies and laws with little to no relevance to COVID-19.

Declaring a national emergency in March, President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act (plus the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, and the National Emergencies Act), gaining new powers, such as deploying the military, freezing bank accounts and silencing broadcasters.

The Defense Production Act – for years used mostly for military supplies – has only been used to force General Motors to make ventilators (which it previously announced anyway), and to urge slaughterhouses to operate despite virus outbreaks there – where some “blamed the victims.” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar “defended Trump’s decision to use the Defense Production Act to force meatpacking plants to remain open by stating he believes infected employees were being exposed to the virus in their communities and bringing it into processing plants,” according to the BlueGreen Alliance of environmental and labor groups.

Meanwhile, here are 10 recent moves leaders claim COVID-19 made necessary:

* Trump refused to reopen enrollment for the Affordable Care Act for the dozens of states where people unemployed because of the pandemic also lost company-provided health insurance.

* He increased drug patrols, saying, “This will impact the coronavirus because people are trying to get in.”

* The White House intensified border restrictions and asylum claims this spring by bypassing court-ordered due process and immediately deporting people entering the nation without documents, causing Migration Policy Institute director Andrew Selee to comment,  “The coronavirus may go away, but there’s a chance you could see these measures stay in place long after epidemic begins to recede.”

* Six states used COVID-19 as an excuse to restrict women’s right to choose, and though judges stopped such moves in Iowa, Ohio and Oklahoma, an appeals court covering Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas in April upheld the effort.

* The National Labor Relations Board in March referred to the coronavirus when it suspended all union elections. (After a backlash from unions, the NLRB said it would reverse the decision.)

* U.S. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler in March eliminated enforcement of environmental standards for the duration of the pandemic.

* A drastic reduction in fuel-efficiency standards (which automakers oppose) was finalized in March while most of the nation was riveted on pandemic news.

* Trump stepped up his defiance of checks and balances, last month firing two inspectors general and criticizing a third after signing the CARES Act rescue bill but issuing a signing statement disputing anyone supervising how funds are disbursed, commented, “I’ll be the oversight.”

* Voting is jeopardized. Some states postponed primaries; Wisconsin ran an election despite dangers to voters, endangering or suppressing voters. Karen Greenberg of Fordham Law School in New York commented, “The social distancing necessary to halt the spread of the virus has called into question the logistics of normal voting and even the future viability of a full and fair election in November,” and professor Marjorie Cohn from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego said, “If Trump loses the election, there is a danger he might illegally declare martial law and refuse to leave the White House.”

* Last, but not least, Attorney General Williams Barr this spring asked Congress for the power to indefinitely jail suspects without trial during emergencies like the coronavirus crisis, then approved dismissing charges against fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who’d pleaded guilty.

Besides domestic effects, foreign relations are being damaged, according to Greenberg. In addition to the administration’s decision (despite allies’ opposition) to withdraw from the “Open Skies” treaty with Russia to reduce the risk of accidental war, Trump’s provoking China by blaming it for COVID-19, and heightened tensions with Iran by launching attacks on pro-Iran forces in Iraq and stiffening economic sanctions that make coronavirus responses there harder.

Now, Trump is refusing to fund the Postal Service or expand mail-in balloting, and he wants to cut payroll taxes that fund Social Security…

Is it paranoia to see parallels getting closer to Nazi’s 1933 Reichstag Fire?