Oklahoma lawmakers consider requiring ‘scientific evidence’ to close businesses in a pandemic

OKLAHOMA CITY — A bill headed to the House floor that limits the governor’s ability to close businesses during a pandemic is “irresponsible” and puts Oklahomans’ safety at risk, one lawmaker said.

Supporters of the bill said businesses need additional protections because closures during the COVID-19 pandemic were in violation of the Oklahoma Constitution and were “very random.”

Senate Bill 672, authored by Sen. Julie McIntosh, R-Porter, and Rep. Kevin West, R-Moore, would require Oklahoma governors to have scientific evidence that the “nature of a particular business” directly contributes to spreading disease before closing businesses during a declared pandemic. The governor would also need to provide notice and an opportunity for a hearing to “nonessential” businesses before issuing an executive order that closes businesses.

Rep. Meloyde Blancett, D-Tulsa, criticized the measure Wednesday. She said at the beginning of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic no one knew how the virus spread, and without a “handle on what makes us safe, it’s irresponsible to put laws in place like this.”

While she said she has a private sector and business background and wants to see businesses survive during a pandemic, Blancett said the bill has too many “open questions” and the hearing process could be extensive.

“It was a pandemic, not an epidemic, not a bad outbreak, a pandemic,” Blancett said. “Meaning the danger of imminent death for those that are vulnerable is clear and present, and what Rep. West’s bill unfortunately does is it puts businesses at a higher level of care than it does the health of our citizens.”

During the most recent pandemic, Oklahoma had over 1.2 million reported cases of COVID-19 and nearly 18,000 deaths, according to John Hopkins, which compiled the state’s statistics.

The number of deaths was “not insignificant,” said Blancett, who voted against advancing the bill out of committee Tuesday.

Blancett said Tulsa should not be told what to do in a pandemic based on the experiences of Moore, West’s hometown.

“And at the end of the day, at some point in time we have to trust the people that we’ve elected to represent us,” she said.

West, R-Moore, said his hometown let individuals and businesses make their own decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was “not a superspreader community.”

When asked about how evidence would be gathered and hearings could reasonably be held without creating an additional burden on businesses or the governor during a pandemic, West said Wednesday that he expects that impact to be “very limited.”

“I don’t see it being something that overwhelms the Governor’s Office,” he said. “But before the governor could even do that, they would have to have the scientific evidence … (that) businesses like this are a contributing factor to the spread.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Kevin Stitt declared a state of emergency March 15, 2020 and issued an executive order nine days later requiring the closure of various businesses. Businesses in Oklahoma were quickly reopened under Stitt. Under the Open Up and Recover Safely plan, the first reopening phase began April 24, 2020 and the state was “fully reopened” by June 1, 2020.

Stitt’s closure orders faced legal challenges to allow businesses, like bars, to remain open. West said he thinks this bill could eliminate the need for these legal challenges by prompting conversations surrounding business closures, but recourse through the court system would still be an option.

West said he has not heard from Stitt’s office on this legislation yet.

Stitt said he is supportive of the bill and “applauds the Legislature for looking at this.”

“I think most people agree I was one of the only governors that did not do a mask mandate statewide,” he said Wednesday. “And most people agree that you don’t put the U.S. Constitution in the attic just because somebody in Washington D.C. tells us to. So I think that’s probably the intent of this bill, to protect our rights as citizens and as an Oklahoma citizen, that’s something that I appreciate. We’ll look at all these bills if they come to my desk. But on the surface it sounds reasonable to me.”

McIntosh, the Senate author, said Wednesday that the closure of businesses during the pandemic was a violation of the Oklahoma Constitution.

The bill language references part of the Oklahoma Constitution, specifically that “all persons have the inherent right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry.”

She introduced the bill because as a physician she saw how people were affected when businesses were declared “nonessential.” She said people ended up with mental health issues and loss of purpose.

“During COVID, it was very random what different states closed and it made no sense,” McIntosh said. “So it was OK if you went to the liquor store or the bar, but you couldn’t get your hair cut. And there was no scientific data to show that one (business) spreads the disease worse than the other.”

The bill cleared the House Commerce and Economic Development Oversight Committee on a 14-3 vote. If the House passes the measure without any changes, it heads to the governor’s desk.

Oklahoma Voice (oklahomavoice.com) is an affiliate of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, supported by grants and donations. Oklahoma Voice provides nonpartisan reporting, and retains full editorial independence.