INTRODUCTION
In the last year, nearly every state legislator across the United States was confronted with questions on the appropriate use of emergency executive power. How long should a state of emergency last? What is the appropriate balance of power between the executive and legislative branches to determine when and where a state of emergency exists? An inextricable part of that dialogue concerned how each particular governor wielded the powers available to them under state law during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As stated in the first edition of this scorecard, how a governor exercised their emergency powers during the COVID-19 pandemic did not inform their state’s score in this report. Rather, this report examines the legal environment under which a governor may exercise executive power during a state of emergency. While some governors’ actions (and resulting legislative or judicial action) during the pandemic helped determine a more exact interpretation of various state laws, the purpose of this scorecard was, and continues to be, to provide context and a point of comparison related to the extent of legislative oversight of the executive branch in times of emergency.