Washington Post: States that raced to reopen let businesses write their own rules, documents show

07.9.2020 / By Isaac Stanley-Becker
Washington Post: States that raced to reopen let businesses write their own rules, documents show

Across the country, moves to reopen the economy before containing the virus offered a lesson in “how the political system accommodates the needs of business,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at the watchdog group Common Cause.

Five days after Georgia’s stay-at-home order expired, setting gyms, restaurants, hair and nail salons and other businesses on a quick course to reopen, a lobbyist for the state’s chamber of commerce emailed top aides to Brian Kemp, the Republican governor.

In the May 5 email, the lobbyist, David Raynor, asked the governor’s aides, including his chief of staff and executive counsel, to prioritize legal protections for businesses if workers or customers were to contract the coronavirus. Kemp’s lawyer, David Dove, replied within five minutes, beginning with an informal salutation, “Hey man,” and strategizing about how to accomplish the group’s aim.

The email correspondence, released through a public records request, shows how business networks and industry organizations helped write the rules of the pandemic response in some of the places that were the last to impose restrictions and the first to ease them. It also sheds light on the thinking of governors who have pledged not to reverse course on reopening, even as coronavirus cases spike in their states. …

Across the country, moves to reopen the economy before containing the virus offered a lesson in “how the political system accommodates the needs of business,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at the watchdog group Common Cause.

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