Commentary: As COVID-19 cases surge, Michigan shifts from the Whitmer Doctrine to the Shirkey Doctri

[demmiblue]

Throughout Michigan's worst public health crisis in a century, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey has decried Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's management of the coronavirus pandemic as heavy-handed.

The Republican from Jackson County has even gone as far as saying the Democratic governor is "very comfortable being a dictator."

Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield sued Whitmer over her emergency powers and encouraged a petition drive to strip the governor of these extraordinary powers — just in case they lost in the courts.

The Michigan Supreme Court ultimately sided with the GOP-run Legislature in a different lawsuit over the 1945 emergency powers law the governor used to keep certain businesses closed for months and limit social gatherings to contain the virus was unconstitutional.

Shirkey, who has long argued government cannot eliminate all risk, says people should have the freedom to choose their own level of risk in contracting or spreading this deadly virus.

Call this the Shirkey Doctrine.

It's a let-it-burn-through strategy with the virus that, in his words, includes "an element of herd immunity."

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/voices-chad-livengood/commentary-covid-19-cases-surge-michigan-shifts-whitmer-doctrine-shirkey