This Was Never Legal

Emergencies are legally required to have a beginning and an end.

An open-ended emergency executive order is plainly illegal in the state of Colorado. According to Colorado Revised Statutes Section 24-33.5-704 part 4 (emphasis ours):

A disaster emergency shall be declared by executive order or proclamation of the governor if the governor finds a disaster has occurred or that this occurrence or the threat thereof is imminent. The state of disaster emergency shall continue until the governor finds that the threat of danger has passed or that the disaster has been dealt with to the extent that emergency conditions no longer exist and the governor terminates the state of disaster emergency by executive order or proclamation, but no state of disaster emergency may continue for longer than thirty days unless renewed by the governor. The general assembly, by joint resolution, may terminate a state of disaster emergency at any time. Thereupon, the governor shall issue an executive order or proclamation ending the state of disaster emergency. All executive orders or proclamations issued under this subsection (4) shall indicate the nature of the disaster, the area threatened, and the conditions that brought it about or that make possible termination of the state of disaster emergency. An executive order or proclamation shall be disseminated promptly by means calculated to bring its contents to the attention of the general public and, unless the circumstances attendant upon the disaster prevent or impede, shall be promptly filed with the office of emergency management in the division of homeland security and emergency management, the secretary of state, the county clerk and recorder, and emergency management agencies in the area to which it applies.

Notice a couple things:

First, the spirit of the statute is clear with regard to emergencies being temporary and geographically-specific disasters, not the controlling of personal behavior to lower the risk of disease. For example, obesity is a public health crisis by all measures, but a disaster emergency should not be declared to stop people from eating too many calories. It is understood that disaster declarations must be specific – they must describe the area threatened and they must define the conditions under which the disaster started and ceases.

None of Jared Polis’ orders meet these requirements. They do not define an area – instead, they label every home, business, and public place (including outdoors) as a disaster area. Beyond this, they fail to identify under what conditions the disaster would cease – apparently leaving it up to the whims of Polis and his lackeys in the Colorado congress, who could end the tyranny by passing a joint resolution if they cared at all about the rights of Coloradoans. It cannot be said often enough that the purpose of a disaster emergency declaration is to suspend the rights of the citizenry, and as such these declarations should be limited in scope and narrowly defined. Our rights are non-negotiable, and violating the freedoms of association, religion, and assembly must pass the highest of legal hurdles.

Unfortunately, the Colorado judiciary is woefully corrupt and unlikely to side with citizens’ rights over the current administration. They would rather, it seems, watch the rights of Coloradoans go down the toilet with what remains of our once-vibrant economy.