Opinion Mondays: "The First Shall Be First, and the Last Shall Remain Last"

COVID-19 Legislation Continues to Follow Discriminatory Practices

The workers’ compensation coronavirus legislation recently passed in Wisconsin and Utah continues to follow the predictable pattern of discriminating against many who face a significantly increased risk of infection because their work requires face-to-face contact with the already infected. Wisconsin’s new law [see H.B. 1038], like that passed in Utah [see H.B. 3007A], provides a rebuttable presumption of compensability for firefighters, law enforcement and emergency service officers, as well as some who provide emergency medical services. By my reading, however, both bills likely exclude hospital housekeeping and laundry service employees who must handle the soiled linens of infected patients. Also excluded are bus drivers, cab drivers, grocery and pharmacy clerks, and anyone else not represented by a strong, active professional lobbying group. Legislators may boast about representing all citizens in their state. When push comes to shove, however, their deed is far removed from their creed. With their actions, they simply repeat the modern political mantra: “The first shall be first, and the last shall remain last.”

Recent Legislation Calls into Question Recent “Emergency” Actions by Governors

As I have observed in an earlier post, quite a few state governors [e.g., California, Kentucky, Missouri, and North Dakota], touting their need for quick action in the face of the crisis, sallied up to microphones and cameras to announce that they had signed broad executive orders creating presumptions of compensability in favor of the typically-favored groups, usually adding something like, “It’s the least we can do.” Yet, the early legislation in Minnesota, coupled with last week’s legislative action in Wisconsin and Utah, prove otherwise. While I strongly disagree with the discriminatory legislation passed in these three states, doesn’t the passage of each of these bills undermine the critical argument by the governors that their unilateral quick action was required? Are the legislators in other states unable to rouse themselves from their social-distancing slumber?

Must Legislation Be So One-Sided?

I may be cynical; I’m not naive. After all, I acknowledge that crafting legislation, like making sausage, isn’t pretty. Those of us who for years have cried out for compromise between the two political extremes should hardly be surprised that legislation — particularly when shoved through a legislative body quickly — is difficult to digest. For many of us, our stomachs soured when we learned that tucked away in the $2.2 trillion federal stimulus package was a special grant of $25 million for the Kennedy Center. “Emergency funding,” we were told. Others shrugged. Speaking about the powerful New York political brokers, they said, “We needed their votes.” In the days that followed, the Center furloughed hundreds of its employees. Again, we hear the refrain of the mantra, “The first shall be first, and the last shall remain last.” Must the public legislative peristalsis be this way? Must it always be so one-sided?

A Playful Parable

Let’s pretend, just for a moment, that the coronavirus social distancing rules weren’t in play, and that we gathered a dozen or more ten-year-old children at a lavish residence for a birthday party. Let’s pretend also that at the appropriate moment, the host brought out two portions of cake and ice cream and placed one of each before the two most popular children in the group, ignoring all the others. What reason would the host give for his or her action? What would the two favored children say or do? Would they look at the empty plates of their friends and refuse to eat that which had been given to them out of solidarity with the others? Would they share? Or would they gobble down their cake and ice cream and perhaps ask for more?

That’s, of course, what essentially is happening around our nation as state governors, one state commission (Illinois), and at least three state legislatures have singled out first responders for special treatment should a member of that already-favored group become ill due to the coronavirus. If you change the dirty and infected sheets of those who are sick and dying, if you disinfect the hospital room that houses a contaminated patient, if you provide public or private transportation for many who have become infected, but whom are showing no signs of the illness, if you sell them groceries or deodorant, if you provide folks with liquor, wine, or beer, understand one important fact: your legislators and governors don’t have your back. Remember the rule that they play by: “The first shall be first, and the last shall remain last.”