Over the past year, states have issued hundreds of rule changes in response to the coronavirus pandemic, covering issues from public health and safety to business protocols to election procedures.
But one consequence of some of these emergency orders has been a shift in the balance of power at the state level. Ballotpedia reported Thursday that eight states have seen the governor's authority weakened by Covid-related legislation.
Governors generally have the authority to declare a state of emergency in cases of natural disasters, disease epidemics and other threats to public health. And in the early days of the pandemic, nearly all states issued lockdown or stay-at-home orders.
But in the months following, some states saw conflict between the executive and legislative branches on how to proceed with the orders. Lawmakers introduced hundreds of bills to limit gubernatorial emergency powers, and ultimately 10 were enacted in eight states.
Surprisingly, in most of those eight states, the same political party controlled the governorship and the legislature. Three were run by Republicans: Arkansas, Ohio and Utah. Two were Democratic: Colorado and New York. And the remaining three have Democratic governors and Republican-majority legislatures: Kansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
Here is a rundown of how these eight states have placed new limits on the governor's emergency powers authority:
Arkansas
Last month, the Legislature passed and Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed legislation that limits statewide emergency declarations to 60 days unless extended by the governor. The new law also allows lawmakers to block any state of emergency extensions made by the governor.
Colorado
Last summer, the General Assembly passed and Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill that requires the governor to communicate with and provide information to state lawmakers following an emergency declaration.
Kansas
Two new laws regarding emergency powers have been enacted in the last year in Kansas. The first, approved last summer, extended the coronavirus state of emergency, while banning Gov. Laura Kelly from declaring any new states of emergency in 2020 without first receiving approval from the state finance council. The law also limits how long the governor can close businesses and terminates emergency proclamations after 15 days unless extended by the Legislature.
The second measure also extended Kansas's state of emergency, while further limiting the governor's emergency powers. It allows anyone burdened by executive order, school board policy or county health directive to file a civil action in court, which must be heard within 72 hours. The law also empowers the Legislative Coordinating Council to override gubernatorial executive orders.
Kentucky
In February, the Republican-majority General Assembly enacted two new restrictive bills by voting to override Democatic Gov. Andy Beshear's vetoes. The first law limits a governor's emergency orders to 30 days unless extended by the legislature. It also requires the governor to receive approval from the attorney general before suspending a statute via executive order during an emergency.
The second law grants legislative committees more oversight of the governor's emergency regulations and requires public input for some orders.
New York
Last month, the Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved a new law that repeals a provision of a law passed last year that extended the governor's executive order powers during a pandemic. The new law also allows the Legislature to revoke any executive order through concurrent resolution. It also requires the governor to create a searchable website that tracks all executive actions made during a pandemic.
Ohio
The Legislature voted last month to override Gov. Mike DeWine's veto of a bill that restricts the governor's authority over public health orders. The new measure allows the Legislature to cancel public health orders after 30 days and requires the governor to renew such orders every 60 days. It also establishes a legislative panel overseeing the governor's public health orders.
Pennsylvania
Last summer, the Pennsylvania General Assembly enacted a law prohibiting the governor from directing agencies to ignore public records requests during states of emergency. At the time, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said he disagreed with the bill, but would "err on the side of transparency" and allow it to become law without his signature.
A constitutional amendment related to emergency declarations was also certified for the May 18 ballot. If approved by voters, the amendment would limit the governor's emergency declarations to 21 days unless the legislature extends them. It would also allow the General Assembly to pass a resolution, without needing the governor's signature, to extend or terminate an executive order during an emergency.
Utah
Last summer, the Legislature and Gov. Gary Herbert approved a measure that requires the governor to notify the legislative pandemic response team within 24 hours of taking any executive actions in response to a public health crisis, unless there is imminent threat to life or property. The law also allows the Legislature to issue a joint resolution to block any pandemic executive actions.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.