COVID-19 reinvigorated debates in several states on well-established statutory emergency powers and public health authority, with several state legislators aiming to transfer these powers to new entities. These bills seek to remove an emergency power from a governor or health official and give it to the state legislature or another official or agency.
This longitudinal dataset captures details of legislation attempting to reallocate public health authority introduced between January 1, 2021, and May 20, 2022, in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Each individual bill is coded as a separate instance and labeled by its bill number. When querying the map below, states with multiple bills will appear as purple; click the state to learn more information about the different bills within that state.
This dataset is one of six that were created in collaboration with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Network for Public Health Law as part of the Act for Public Health initiative.