“I can understand the need in an “emergency” to act faster than congress is able to.
But we are at the beginning of year 3 of this, and if congress wanted mandates, it has had plenty of opportunities to pass it.”
Well, at the state level, the emergency powers of governors are usually designed to only be used when there is real emergency and the legislature can’t meet. If the legislature is able to convene (even remotely), then there is no legitimate emergency. It doesn’t qualify as an emergency just because the legislature is gridlocked and can’t pass anything. Otherwise emergency powers would be invoked every day.
At the federal level, the President has no emergency powers at all, so there’s not even any debate to be had that he can bypass congress that way.
actually the president has all sorts of emergency powers like the power to go to war without congress approval in an emergency.