Legislatures meet remotely, limit public

Members of the Arkansas House met in a college basketball arena, spaced out among 5,600 seats, as they voted on ways to cover a budget shortfall caused by the coronavirus punch to the economy.

When South Dakota lawmakers convene today to consider 10 emergency bills, it won’t be inside their familiar chambers. Instead, they will be speaking and voting via a video call system.

This is not government as usual.

In state capitols across the U.S., lawmakers have ditched decorum and sidestepped traditional public meeting requirements in a rush to pass legislation funding the fight against the coronavirus and aiding residents affected by the widespread shutdown of commerce.

Social distancing mandates intended to slow the spread of the virus have upended life for millions of Americans and also have led lawmakers to scrap centuries-old rules about the way they conduct work.

In Pennsylvania last week, most House members took advantage of new rules to stay away from the chamber as they passed legislation delaying the state’s primary elections because of coronavirus concerns. Remote lawmakers messaged or emailed their intended votes to designated colleagues at the Capitol, who told them to a clerk, who entered them into the chamber’s voting system.

“It is an enormous shift, probably the biggest change to Vermont’s democracy since we were founded as a state,” Democratic House Speaker Mitzi Johnson told reporters as the chamber adopted new rules for remote voting.

Vermont lawmakers have voted with a verbal yes or no from assigned seats in a closely packed chamber. That changed this past week, when they adopted an emergency rule allowing members to spread out through the visitors’ galleries to keep a germ-safe distance from each other.

The next time they are in full session, Vermont lawmakers will be spread out through the entire state, testing a still-to-be-designed remote voting system.

The state experiments are meant to slow the spread of the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease so hospitals won’t become overwhelmed with a sudden surge of patients. The ill include several members of Congress and lawmakers in numerous states.

At least six state lawmakers have tested positive in Georgia, one of nearly two dozen states that have halted or ended their sessions because of coronavirus concerns.