Florida Legislature can’t come up with a single reason to be at work during the worst public health crisis in our history.

Talk about sheltering in place. The Florida Legislature can’t come up with a single reason to be at work during the worst public health crisis in our history. Any civics book will tell you that our “citizen Legislature” is a co-equal branch with the governor, but you would never know that from watching the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. When we need our elected representatives to represent us most, they go AWOL.

The only obligation lawmakers have under the Florida Constitution is to pass a balanced budget each year. They did that on March 19, as the magnitude of the public health threat was still emerging. Then they went home and faded to black.

To their credit, they set aside $4 billion in cash reserves, money usually saved for hurricane response and recovery. Absent a costly hurricane this year, those reserves could be used to cushion the massive drop in sales tax revenue expected from the economic shutdown. But with forecasters predicating an above-average hurricane season, idle lawmakers are taking an enormous gamble.

The $93.2 billion budget passed before the economy shut down is no longer relevant to the times. When Gov. Ron DeSantis gets it, he should aggressively veto millions of dollars in special projects around the state. But he should do his best to preserve increased environmental spending and protect pay raises for starting teachers and state employees, including corrections officers.

What makes no sense is for the legislature’s Republican leaders to sit on their hands during this economic crisis, deferring simply to their party’s governor. Florida needs a courageous and statesmanlike Legislature, subject to guidelines on social distancing and limits on large gatherings. Other states can do it. Why can’t we? In Pennsylvania, a state similar in size to Florida with a small-town capital far from its population centers, lawmakers adopted temporary rules so they can meet amid restrictions and vote remotely. In Harrisburg, senators can question key state officials via live-streamed hearings.

Floridians deserve a watchdog Legislature, especially now.

In all likelihood, Republican leaders want to avoid giving Democrats a platform to criticize or second-guess the governor, the surgeon general and others on his top team. Instead, a few Republican lawmakers are serving on DeSantis-created task forces with business leaders, praising the governor’s work and offering advice on how to reopen the state. It was heartening, though, to hear House Speaker Jose Oliva avoid the happy talk this week and bluntly call for more specific, detailed medical advice for worried and uncertain small business owners.

In the Florida House, Democrats are petitioning for a special session to focus on three major issues: the unemployment compensation mess; an expansion of Medicaid to help millions of laid-off workers; and changes to election laws, such as an expansion of voting by mail. Democrats are currently using an obscure provision to poll all 40 senators and 120 House members. If three-fifths of them agree, a session must be held.

But in Tallahassee’s top-down, oneparty Republican rule, don’t hold your breath. For besides protecting the governor, neither do Republicans want to give Democrats an election-year platform to promote their agenda.

But this shouldn’t be about re-election campaigns. It should be about us. Lawmakers should come to the rescue of college students who can’t break apartment leases. They should fix the bridge loan fund that cruelly ran dry after helping just 1,000 of 38,000 applicants. They should find ways to reduce the prison inmate population to limit the spread of Covid-19. They should block all evictions, increase the weekly $275 jobless benefit cap and prevent utilities from shutting off water and electricity to customers who’ve gone broke.

It has been two weeks since Democratic Sen. Randolph Bracy of Orlando formally asked Senate President Bill Galvano to call a session to deal with the unemployment system mess that has already cost taxpayers $77 million to try to fix. Galvano said no. He said DeSantis has taken steps to improve the state response and that a federal program will provide Florida workers with more money.

“If I believed calling a special session of the Legislature could help expedite the processing of reemployment assistance claims, I would not hesitate to do so,” Galvano wrote to Bracy. “Unfortunately, no formal action by the Legislature will assist with the important and ongoing work of physically processing claims, which continue to flood in at an alarming rate.”

Certainly, the Legislature should not convene absent a clear agenda and a pathway to consensus. But given the enormity of the crisis enveloping us, how could its slate be blank?

In recent years, lawmakers have held special sessions on far less significant issues, such as implementing medical marijuana use and redrawing House and Senate districts.

The coronavirus is a matter of life and death for people and businesses. We need a Legislature that works — literally.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Sergio Bustos, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.