I love saving money at the gas pump, but I fear the precedent Gov. Mike Braun is setting by ignoring state law in favor of unilateral executive power. And so should lawmakers.
His gas tax holiday could turn into a loss of eight months in road funding — all without the involvement of the legislative branch of state government. The first four months alone are expected to cost the state $533 million in losses reimbursed to the Indiana Department of Transportation and local units of government.
It’s a slippery slope to just start picking and choosing the laws our elected officials follow or not. And all people should be concerned about the rule of law, even if they agree with the ultimate result.
There are several reasons why the latest maneuver is on shaky ground.
The 1981 law allowing the governor to suspend transportation-related laws has two key elements. The first says a governor can declare an energy emergency for 60 days. The second says it can be renewed once. After that, the General Assembly must act for it to continue.
Braun used 30-day increments and renewed it three times under the first emergency. And last week he created an entirely new emergency, based not on the Iran war driving up gas prices but on Canadian wildfires and a four-year-old conflict in Ukraine.
It’s clearly a pretext to do what he wanted — extend the gas suspension — without calling in legislators for a special session.
GOP leadership in the House and Senate are on board. But that doesn’t make it right.
During the pandemic, when then-Gov. Eric Holcomb extended a public health emergency dozens of times, some fellow Republican lawmakers didn’t like it. But there was nothing in the law limiting the extensions.
That’s unlike this situation, where the law is pretty clear.
When legislators returned in 2021, one of the first things they did was restrict future health emergencies by a governor. And they made sure governors couldn’t pretext a new emergency.
“If a state of disaster emergency that applies to the entire state has ended, the governor may not call a new state of disaster emergency that applies to the entire state unless the new disaster is wholly unrelated to the earlier disaster,” the law now says.
Sound good? Too bad legislators didn’t think of that back in 1981 when writing the energy law.
What’s more is that I don’t think Indiana ever met the definition of an energy emergency in the first place. I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve read a lot of statutes over the years. Here is the exact definition:
“As used in this chapter, ‘energy emergency’ means an existing or projected shortfall of at least eight percent (8%) of motor fuel or of other energy sources that threatens to seriously disrupt or diminish energy supplies to the extent that life, health, or property may be jeopardized.”
The Braun administration has not provided proof of any shortfall at all, much less of 8%. And life, health or property is not being jeopardized. Let’s face it. This is just because the price is too high. Nothing more. There are no supply issues.
When reporters asked Braun what would happen if someone sued over his actions, he questioned what motives would be behind such a move.
The motives are simple to me. This is a question about the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. In this case, the legislative leaders agree, but imagine if they didn’t. Lawmakers don’t have the ability to call themselves into session, so one person could drain Indiana’s coffers by more than $1 billion with these repeated “emergencies.”
This is at worst breaking the law, and at best breaking the spirit of it.
Originally published on indianacapitalchronicle.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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