Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s COVID-19 policy in March “Stay Home, Stay Healthy, Stay Connected” was changed in May to “Stay Healthy, Return Smarter, Return Stronger” but really should be “Don’t Think, Don’t Decide, Don’t Govern.”
Ducey’s latest move is not a benevolent delegation of powers he usurped in March, when he imposed the first executive order limiting the power of local governments to make any decisions regarding precautions against COVID-19.
No, this is a cowardly attempt to avoid taking any responsibility for the decision about whether or not to force people to wear masks.
He could, as governor, have declared areas or counties meeting testing standards, or infection thresholds or by their mere geography to require masks in public spaces.
Instead he chose to shift the authority to local governments — meaning 91 towns and 15 counties, governed by nearly 700 elected officials will make those decisions. While we are encouraged to have representative democracy restored by King Ducey, who has ruled over our state by imperial fiat for the last four months, we know that when 700 people try how to govern their neighbors, they not are all rational and can agree.
Congress has only 535 members and they never disagree. Right?
So be prepared for a hodgepodge of rules and regulations from Page to Nogales, Yuma to Window Rock.
We have five towns and two counties in the Verde Valley alone that have jurisdiction over us and our friends and neighbors. So for a Clarkdale resident who has to shop for groceries in Cottonwood, then drive across Yavapai County to work in Uptown Sedona, in the Coconino County side of the city, he or she will have five different sets of rules for whether masks are required or not. Those guidelines certainly won’t change daily as infections fluctuate or as elected officials revise their rules.
These seven boards will certainly not agree on what to do regionally. It could take weeks for all seven boards to meet and agree on a uniform policy, by which time, the emperor in Phoenix will have issued a new executive order yet again rendering the whole process moot.
What it does do is take the focus off Ducey, which is perhaps his only intent. During his forced shutdowns in March and April, Ducey took fire from the left for not imposing stricter restrictions on Arizonans’ movements and behaviors. He took fire from the right for imposing the lockdown in the first place.
At the start of May he faced open revolt from Republican lawmakers in the Arizona House of Representatives and Senate who threatened to overrule his executive orders and reopen the state themselves. He also faces a recall petition aimed at removing him from office. Despite claiming a slow rollback of restrictions, he peeled back nearly everything he could, reopening the state to business activity — as soon as possible to stave off the hemorrhage of conservative support and avoid legislative insurrection.
The anticipated second wave hit shortly after Memorial Day weekend as Arizonans returned to life as normal, more or less, eager to forget the last month and a half and put the forced quarantine behind us.
Now infection rates have gone up sixfold while testing is up fourfold. It is interesting to watch the governor say “this is fine, don’t worry” when there are 1,200 cases per day while remembering that he shut down the state two months ago, when there were fewer than 200 cases per day. This has nothing to do with public health, but with politics.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Ducey also imposed two pages of new restrictions on businesses, mandatory rules set to go into effect less than nine hours later. He did not warn any of the tens of thousands of businesses operating in Arizona prior to presser, leaving small businesses owners that just reopened wondering what to do now and scrambling for supplies before opening doors on Thursday.
Either Ducey is a masochist or a moron, but he’s said goodbye to winning a U.S. Senate seat in 2022.
Ducey’s attempt to avoid criticism was evident Wednesday with the staging. Last week, when asked about masks, Ducey pulled one from his pocket and says he wears it when necessary. This week, Ducey, Arizona Department of Health Services Director Dr. Cara Christ and Arizona Adjutant Major Gen. Michael T. McGuire arrived to the conference with masks on, then sat and removed them simultaneously, then used hand sanitizer simultaneously, before beginning.
Prominent on the desk in front of Ducey, facing the audience, a bottle with a generic label reading “hand sanitizer.” Where can we get such expertly generically branded products? Political-Props-Я-Us?
It is politically brilliant for Ducey to shift the conversation to the 106 local elected boards and take the spotlight and responsibility off his office. He can stay above the fray while local leaders argue among themselves and with residents about whether to impose masks or not.
We urge local leaders not to impose mandatory masks on our communities. The public’s current risk is low in the Verde Valley with only around 100 cases since March. Residents are taking precautions as they see fit and government shouldn’t be enforcing mask wearing while also trying to manage economic collapse and mitigate nationwide protests.
That said, who will enforce these rules? Do we want police additionally tasked with the power to enforce a dress code while calls to “defund the police” echo nationally and statewide in response the killing of George Floyd? Surely local police power is better used investigating burglaries, clearing traffic accidents or preventing domestic violence than writing tickets for “failure to wear a mask in the second degree.”
We have hundreds of people on social media reporting businesses and their neighbors not wearing masks while it is currently a recommendation. If mask wearing becomes law, enforced in wildly different ways, we will have thousands of residents reporting criminal violations against their neighbors. Kim Jong-un would be proud.
If COVID-19 suddenly increases in Yavapai County and the Verde Valley, residents will begin wearing masks on their own, while many already have. Forcing people to do so by mandate or ordinance only increases animus against government and fear and distrust among neighbors that will remain long after we find a vaccine for COVID-19.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
