Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman intensified on Wednesday her long-standing criticism of public health restrictions imposed by Governor Steve Sisolak, saying that government emergency power left open “smells of tyranny” and that personal freedoms should be restored.
“Nevadans and Americans are smart enough to understand what is at stake and make the appropriate choices for them and their families,” said Goodman, reading the prepared comments and speaking in the public pulpit during the City Council meeting.
Sisolak issued emergency guidelines across the pandemic to slow the spread of the virus, regulating crowd size, businesses, schools, activities and more. Your authority to do this is found in state law.
But, a year after Sisolak ordered all non-core businesses closed, Goodman chose to criticize the Nevada reopening that took place more gradually than she would have liked.
Sisolak largely avoided responding directly to her criticism on Wednesday night, acknowledging that the decisions made last year “were not easy decisions”, but he said they were guided by scientific data available at the time.
Sisolak predicted that the economy will recover and stores will reopen, but said public health has been his priority.
“That kitchen chair – when you have Easter or Thanksgiving dinner – is empty because you lost a loved one to COVID, that person is not coming back,” he said.
Goodman still cooking
The mayor, who has faced considerable scrutiny for underestimating the seriousness of the pandemic, made reference to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, with whom she had a viral interview last year, during her morning statements. She also lamented the effects of school closures on students and questioned the connection between closing the state and saving lives.
“It is also necessary to ask, if the masks and social distance are enough now to slow the spread of the virus, wouldn’t that have been enough a year ago?” she said.
Goodman noted that the per capita mortality rate for COVID-19 was lower in Texas and Florida – two states that imposed relatively moderate safety precautions during the pandemic – than in more heavily regulated states such as Nevada, Michigan and New York.
But requests to stay home with public mask orders, case investigations and contact tracking are effective in reducing cases, hospitalizations and deaths, according to a study by the United States’ Center for Disease Control and Prevention in November.
Land of the free?
As vaccines are distributed to more and more people in Nevada, it will soon include those aged 16 and over, all major disease metrics have steadily declined in the state, even as Sisolak continues to ease restrictions.
When Nevada began to undo regulations in the fall, cases and hospitalizations emerged, prompting Sisolak to enact a “statewide break” that prompted Goodman to call him a “dictator” in an interview with the Review-Journal.
Goodman on Wednesday echoed his earlier calls to open unrestricted businesses to protect workers and the local economy.
“America is the land of the free, but Americans in some states, not all, have been forced to submit their liberties to the will of a single individual, apparently forever,” she said. “Apparently, there is no end to the emergency powers granted to some governors, which smells of tyranny.”
Some Republicans called for limiting or reviewing the governor’s emergency powers and introduced bills in the legislature to do so.
Contact Shea Johnson at [email protected] or 702-383-0272. follow @Shea_LVRJ on twitter.
Review-Journal staff writer Colton Lochhead contributed to this report.