State lawmakers want to change the way Alabama handles future lockdowns
Updated Feb 09, 2021;
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The shutdown could not come at any worse time last spring for the mom-and-pop children’s boutiques in state Rep. David Wheeler’s district.
“Easter was their business,” said Wheeler, R-Vestavia Hills. “Yet, there was Target and Walmart open and selling children’s clothes.”
Owners had no recourse, and nowhere to lodge their complaints, he said. Wheeler wants to change that and is pitching legislation creating a citizens’ health advisory board in Jefferson County to provide oversight of the county’s health officer.
He’s not alone. A host of mostly Republican state lawmakers, relegated to the regulatory sideline for much of the coronavirus pandemic, want to enter the fray during future health emergencies and are pitching bills aimed at reforming the public health administration in Alabama.