Wisconsin Leaders To Try 'Safer At Home' Order Again: Report

MILWAUKEE, WI — State health officials say they're trying again when it comes to issuing a new Safer At Home order - but this time they're taking a different legal approach.

"The proposed emergency rule is intended to balance two complementary objectives: (1)
“boxing in” COVID-19 to limit its spread to healthy Wisconsinites; and (2) reopening and
support of the Wisconsin economy without creating undue risk of spreading the virus
and thereby causing additional long-term economic disruptions," state health officials wrote in the document.

According to a FOX 6 report, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services published a Statement Of Scope document on Thursday that outlines a new order. What makes the start of this new Safer At Home order different is the way it's being shuttled through the legal system.

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This week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the state's original Safer At Home order, saying state health officials did not go through the state's rule-making process which is overseen by the state legislature.

State health officials and the governor have been at odds over how to manage the state's response to the coronavirus pandemic. Democratic leaders in the statehouse have been generally supportive of top-level emergency orders regulating bars, restaurants, schools, businesses and social interactions.

Republican leaders in the state legislature have gone on the record opposing such measures, calling them legal overreaches. A GOP-backed lawsuit that went before the Wisconsin Supreme Court successfully challenged the legality of those emergency orders, leading Democratic state leaders back to square one.

Thursday's document, which was drawn up with the assistance of the Department of Health Service's legal counsel, seeks to establish a new Safer At Home order through the state's rule making process. You can read the full document here.

"Because there is no vaccine and no treatment for COVID-19 there is presently no viable
alternative to the kinds of social distancing, reducing in-person contact, and related
measures to control the spread of the disease that have been adopted in most states.
Procedurally, the only alternative to proceeding with emergency rule making would be
legislative action to address the goals of the proposed emergency rule," the document's authors wrote.

It remains unclear whether GOP leaders in the state legislature will go for a new proposal from the governor's office, though the two sides have been in contact about how to move forward now that the state does not have a Safer At Home order at the head of the state's pandemic response.

Related Reading

• Wisconsin Coronavirus Tracker
• Wearing Masks During Coronavirus: What The Wisconsin DHS Says
• Coronavirus: Some Wisconsin Businesses Can Reopen Under New Order

• What's going on in Wisconsin? Find Out Here
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