Toms River, NJ, February 7, 2022- Mayor Maurice B. “Mo” Hill, Jr. is urging Governor Phil Murphy not to renew his declaration of a Public Health Emergency when it expires this week and he is urging the Legislature to pass S-1200, a bill sponsored by Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) and Senator Vin Gopal (-D-Monmouth) that would curb the governor’s emergency powers and reestablish the Legislature as a co-equal branch of State government.

“Two weeks to flatten the curve has extended to two years of unchecked executive power that has resulted in economic devastation for New Jersey’s small businesses and untold damage to the mental health and development of New Jersey’s school children,” said Hill, the mayor of New Jersey’s 8th largest municipality and a retired Rear Admiral. “The wisdom of Governor Murphy’s executive orders, unrestrained by Constitutional checks and balances, is now in serious doubt by highly respected academics, scientists and physicians.”

Last month Johns Hopkins University published a study that concluded that the lockdowns in New Jersey and throughout the nation had a negligible impact on curbing deaths caused by COViD-19. Last week a nationwide panel of esteemed doctors and scientists known as Urgency of Normal called for the end of masking mandates and the isolation of children in our schools.

“I don’t question Governor Murphy’s sincerity or good intentions in trying to protect the people of New Jersey,” Hill said, “but it turns out the ‘knuckleheads’ in and out of the Legislature who questioned Murphy’s omnipotent wisdom might have been right all along.”

“Governor Murphy is right—we need to be vigilant, but not just about COVID. We also need to be vigilant about executives with unchecked power. Our governments as established in the United States and New Jersey Constitutions are based upon checks and balances for very wise reasons. It is long past time to that we returned to those principles”