We’re from the Government and We’re Here to Help

The coronavirus (COVID-19) has disrupted society in ways unseen even during the worst of Y2K, 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy.  Regular commerce is suffering as confidence in public, in-person transactions collapses.  Add to this mix the government’s schizophrenic reaction to this crisis, and you get a set of circumstances which will leave the public more vulnerable to infection.

On one hand, government commendably seeks to “flatten the curve” of contagion.  To this end, government has ordered staggered reductions in the percentage of workers on-site, and the closure of whole industries – such as concert venues and movie theatres – to promote “social distancing.”  On the other hand, to account for all the lost commerce which government’s measures are causing, government is proposing stimulus packages to prop up individuals and businesses. 

Here in New York we have seen particularly disjointed measures adopted concerning the electoral cycle.  Governor Cuomo on March 14th issued Executive Order 202.2 significantly lowering the threshold for petition signatures needed to access the ballot, yet in the same breath (if you’ll pardon the ill-timed pun) he shortened the time frame for petitioning by nearly two weeks.  That had some petitioners scrambling to knock on people’s doors, which hardly helps the effort to limit human contact.

On March 16th the New York Legislature was scheduled to introduce Bill A10151/S8058 to advance the period for filing ballot petitions from March 29th to March 17th.  The Legislature could not actually meet on the 16th, so the bill was introduced and passed on the 18th, meaning that retroactively we lost a day of the filing window which they were already shortening!   This forced many staffers from “multi-county” campaigns to rush to the Board of Elections in Albany.  The Board prudently admitted no more than two people at a time… which left up to thirty fatigued staffers huddled in the lobby, ripe for COVID-19!

We are experiencing an international health crisis which demands emergency measures, but “emergency” does not necessarily require haste.To our societal toolkit for tackling this pandemic, let’s add measures which extend deadlines and generally invite reflection about whether we are rushing in the correct directions.

Daniel Donnelly, Amenia
Dutchess County Libertarian Party’s Vice-Chair

March 22nd, 2020, published in the Millerton News