It’s time to end Murphy’s COVID power: This is not an emergency (Opinion)

New Jersey is the only state in the country that is operating under a type of dictatorship right now. And I’m not being dramatic.

The way Gov. Murphy and the Legislature have set up Murphy’s "emergency powers," they will vote to extend it for as long as they like. And that basically means, without your say, without voting and without the democratic process, the governor's word unilaterally decides what is best for us.

This is a mockery of the system and should have never happened in the first place. What we've seen so far has always been a scary and dangerous precedent, but now it is doing exactly what it was designed to do: Keep the governor in the unique position of ruler.

It’s a moot point to put the extension of this power up for a vote because the party that supports it has the majority and will simply vote to keep extending.

But even if you thought that this kind of unrelenting power was the right thing to do at the beginning of all of this pandemic panic — and I can’t imagine who would — you have to admit that any need for the governor to continue making decisions for us has long past.

This is not the onset of a scary new virus that we have no idea how to deal with. This may be an important issue but in my opinion, it’s no longer an emergency.

And before you say that I am a conspiracy theorist who thinks the pandemic is fake, please read the words of Assemblyman Jay Webber, R-Morris, who admits that although the issues surrounding the pandemic are important, we are no longer in crisis mode. And he is right.

The people in the state of New Jersey are sick and tired of having one person be able to control whether they can open their stores or not, or whether they have to wear a mask somewhere or not, or whether their children have to wear masks in school, whether their children might have to be vaccinated or not, whether they can go to a park, whether they can sit for graduation

I couldn't agree more.

It’s time to remove these nonsense emergency powers from Gov. Murphy and go back to government by the people and for the people.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Judi Franco only.

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