Their view: Vote to protect communities and small businesses

As a worker, employer and manufacturer in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it’s been difficult to watch how Gov. Tom Wolf’s COVID response — including his closure of “non-life-sustaining” businesses — hurt communities and livelihoods in our region.

Throughout the crisis, Wolf’s policies, enabled by his emergency powers declaration, put countless Pennsylvanians out of work, shuttered 30% of the state’s businesses, and, more importantly, stifled our freedoms.

Pennsylvanians are still suffering from Wolf’s poor decision-making and nearly unlimited authority. But this May, we can take action and send a loud and clear message: Never again.

Constitutional amendments on the primary election ballot would make sure no governor can indefinitely lock down the economy without consulting the people’s representatives. Wolf’s actions over the past year illustrate why voters should approve these amendments and enshrine proper checks and balances in the state constitution.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2020 Business Response Survey, Pennsylvania had the second highest state business closure rate in the nation. Amid his abrupt lockdowns, Wolf effectively encouraged Pennsylvanians making more on unemployment and welfare programs to stay at home even after their jobs were made available. This is incredibly damaging to workers and our fragile economic recovery.

Indeed, Wolf’s COVID policies devastated the small business community. His positions, including on unemployment benefits, were a slap in the face to businessowners, who desperately tried to navigate Wolf’s disaster declarations. His anti-capitalist positions led me to resign from the Pennsylvania Workforce Development Board — a group which was well-positioned to help the governor avoid these policy errors, if only he had sought our counsel.

At my own company, i2M, we’ve worked to respond to lockdown policies. For example, we established classrooms at our Mountain Top plant for employees whose children are schooling remotely. We even hired a teacher to assist these students so parents can feel confident leaving their children at “school” while they work. But not all employers have the facilities to make such accommodations for children’s education.

In fact, for months, Pennsylvanians have suffered as Wolf acted unilaterally, without consultation from the business community — or even the state Legislature — to keep employers closed and employees from returning to work. When lawmakers passed bipartisan bills to safely reopen certain business sectors, Wolf vetoed them. Wolf even threatened to veto unanimously-passed legislation compelling him to increase transparency about business closure policies. In other words, he wouldn’t even listen to members of his own party who were attempting to hold him accountable to the people.

Pennsylvanians can respond in the May 18 primary. Two ballot initiatives would rein in the governor’s emergency powers, which fueled this economic dysfunction. If passed, future governor-declared emergencies would require legislative extensions after 21 days. The General Assembly, moreover, could end emergency declarations by majority vote. These are commonsense solutions to more than a year without checks and balances on the governor’s power.

As history shows, Wolf’s attitude toward Pennsylvanians’ ability to earn a living or keep a business running has been disheartening. We need state leaders to encourage and promote independence, and to be supportive of our economic recovery, which benefits everyone. I’m confident that Northeastern Pennsylvania can recover, but we must prevent this disaster from happening again — under any administration.

This May, I urge anyone who values our local communities and small businesses — whether Republican, Democrat or Independent — to vote “Yes” on the ballot questions that will restore a proper balance of power to state government.