And so it started five years ago today, unwise actions by Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards that, as a saving grace at least, established – at a high and unnecessary cost – a knowledge bank from which to work in the future and triggered some beneficial changes to state policies.
The Wuhan coronavirus pandemic had launched in all ways but name, becoming noticeable in several of the largest cities in the country but also in New Orleans. Credit Carnival, which had ended almost three weeks earlier, as the device that brought it hot and heavily into the state. So, on Mar. 13, 2020, Edwards issued the first of a string of proclamations under his statutory powers – then heavily favoring unilateral gubernatorial action – significantly curtailing personal and economic freedoms of individuals.
Perhaps he could be forgiven in the early, uncertain days of the pandemic for such a reaction, and the prevailing ethos was that stopping most everything for a couple of weeks would knock the virus down in its tracks. But the problem became a mutation of that ethos into creating close to attaining a zero-risk “zero Covid” environment requiring the heavy hand of the state that, even that early on, preceptive policy-makers realized was impossible and that the costs would be staggeringly high even to achieve mild and incomplete effectiveness towards that goal.
Edwards, being of the government-knows-best school, and the bigger it got the better it could use that to spread an ideological imperative of collectivism and redistribution, refused to accept that lesson, even as over time more enlightened governors, if not leaders of other countries, presented examples that became increasingly compelling. Edwards, relative to Louisiana, was the most prominent villain whose actions needlessly increased deaths related to pandemic policy-making, but there were others like him on the wrong side of history and there were heroes as well. But what did the state learn or gain from the experience?
First, citizens gained greater rights over their own physical persons insofar as education. As soon as Edwards was shoved out the door, pieces of legislation came through that no longer forced students and employees of schools to have coronavirus vaccinations and created greater awareness that parents did not have to vaccinate children in order for them to attend schools, or to discriminate against them.
Second, gubernatorial powers became less dictatorial and subject to more oversight. Again, as soon as Edwards was around no longer the Legislature passed a law allowing one instead of both houses to terminate a gubernatorial emergency and not solely all of it but its parts separately.
Third, religious freedom was strengthened. That happened before Edwards’ term ended when the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled in favor of a suit against his restrictions on religious gatherings, agreeing that it was discriminatory against religious practice relative to other allowed gatherings of individuals, for commerce, for example.
Fourth, Edwards gave in on increased oversight of the governor and Secretary of State on emergency election plans, not contesting 2022 legislation that gave the Legislature greater control of adoption of those plans. This could prevent widespread use, for example, of mail ballots as occurred in the 2020 election under an emergency plan the Legislature was unable to stop. After Edwards left office, the Legislature outlawed other practices of questionable election integrity.
Finally, schools – fortunately less so in Louisiana because the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and Superintendent Cade Brumley (who came onto the job two months after Edwards began constricting things) bucked Edwards’ desire to close things including schools and left that up to districts if and when to close schools and to what degree – learned the wages of learning loss by moving education totally online for extended periods. Hopefully, if something of this nature ever happens again, that lesson won’t be lost.
These lessons were learned the hard way, principally because the wrong man had too much power at the wrong time, and it cost lives. But at least, as the responses over these five years showed, they were learned and Louisiana is better for it.
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