A bill that would allow businesses and individuals to push back on mandates from county health officials heads to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s desk for his signature.
In response to the ongoing COVID19 public health emergency, lawmakers drafted a Senate Bill 5 that would require locally elected officials to approve actions taken by public health departments, which are typically appointed.
Bill author Rep. Matt Lehman, R-Berne, emphasized that the bill had nothing to do with regular health department activities, such as closing a restaurant for health code violations related to food-borne diseases.
“This is very tight now,” Lehman said, referring to earlier versions of the bill. “Revolving only around a time when a county or a city health officer declares a local emergency and a direct order to a particular business (or) a wide order (under) the governor.”
The new process allows for businesses to appeal and for health officers to pursue a court order. “We’re simply saying that any appointed position in a democratic republic that has that much unparalleled power should get a second set of eyes to look at it and philosophically I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Sen. Chris Garten, R-Charlestown, said. Garten, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, described it as a system of check-and-balances that requires municipalities to get local approval for mandates stricter than state requirements, such as mask and capacity limits under COVID-19.
The health department can file an injunction at any time with the approval of their local body. Some senators said they felt that the bill still needed work, including Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Portage. She said the bill set up barriers for health departments operating in an emergency by requiring a legislative body to approve.
“During an emergency is exactly the time when we need to act quickly,” Tallian said. “You’re really tying the hands of the health department officer in an emergency.”
Under the bill, a health officer could write an order and the legislative body, a city council or county commissioners, could wait 53 days before approving for passage. Rep. Rita Fleming, D-Jeffersonville, likened the move to leaving a bridge open while studying it for structural deficiencies knowing its
collapse could kill people, rather than immediately listening to an engineer and closing the bridge.
“A lot can happen in a month … (legislative local bodies) may be virtuous people, but they’re not epidemiologists,” Fleming, a retired OBGYN, said. “Do they understand that all a virus wants to do is replicate itself? That its only function … (is to) hurt you and your family?”
The bill passed 37-12 in the Senate and 65-29 in the House.
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