April, 2020
Washington – No sooner had I suggested that governors, frustrated with lack of leadership from the federal government, might make agreements with foreign powers to fight the coronavirus, than Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland did just that. With the help of his wife, a native speaker of Korean, the governor negotiated with South Korea for such assistance.
He was concerned that his own U.S. federal government might intervene and confiscate the resulting shipment of testing supplies and protective equipment from Korea, but that did not happen.
This could be an important constitutional precedent: the U.S. government did not challenge a governor acting under his police powers to protect the health and welfare of his citizens by entering directly into an agreement with a foreign power.
Others are writing on the topic of federalism and about how new assertions of state sovereignty may be in the offing, perhaps through interstate compacts and regional governments. This development is apparent both before and after the onset of the era of coronavirus.
This is not going to let up. It is not only governors who are frustrated with Washington's leadership failure; our international allies are likewise appalled and in disbelief.
What else might states start to take into their own hands? There are limits to states' police powers, but in the era of coronavirus, with an inept administration in Washington, it seems those limits have a long way to go before being reached. The political science community needs to step up to explore those limits and what pushing them may portend.
