A California Senate committee is set to consider terminating Governor Newsom’s emergency powers today, led by a Republican resolution.
Governor Newsom administration officials said the state's COVID-19 state of emergency will need to remain in place, however, because it is necessary to continue the state’s COVID response. Under the emergency power authority, the Governor waived statutes and laws to allow testing and vaccination programs and to ensure that California had enough capacity in hospitals to handle another surge in cases. Since the declared a state of emergency on March 4 of 2020, Governor Newsom has issued 70 executive orders addressing a range of issues, including price gouging, halting evictions and postponing the deadline for tax filings. The vast majority of those have either been rescinded or have expired.