Governor Murphy says he is currently working to end the state of emergency in New Jersey which has been in effect for well over a year now. The governor suggested that the state has made enough progress in the fight against COVID-19 to allow the lifting of the state of emergency, which gives the governor special powers that he can wield to take unilateral action to help lead and coordinate the fight against the virus.

Sounds good, right? Wrong. While on its face it sounds like a positive development, Governor Murphy has zero plans to give up the powers he got upon declaring the state of emergency. The governor and NJ Senate President Steve Sweeney are currently working on legislation that would allow Murphy to keep huge chunks of the power he has wielded for the past 14 months, even without a state of emergency in effect.

In other words, Murphy is ending the state of emergency in New Jersey because it makes him look good. While New Jersey had one of the worst responses to coronavirus, one of the highest death tolls in the United States, and was hit harder economically than just about every Republican-led state in the country, Murphy wants to take a victory lap, showing everyone how through his leadership the state has emerged from the pandemic while at the same time not giving up his emergency powers.

This is not how democratically elected officials behave. This is what we see in third-world countries, where dictators and power-grabbers speak out of both sides of their mouths, claiming to do one thing while hoarding more power for themselves.

The truth is that none of this should be surprising. We have seen over the course of COVID-19 that Governor Murphy had no qualms with imposing rules and regulations whose constitutionality was highly suspect. And we also know that he’s running for reelection this fall. Is it really a surprise that he is now trying to keep his pandemic powers while also telling his constituents how benevolent and competent he is, so much so that he is allowing the state of emergency to expire? It doesn’t surprise me, and it shouldn’t surprise you.

Remember when Republicans said that Governor Murphy is using the state of emergency as a power grab? Remember when they warned that once the governor gets the powers afforded to him by declaring a state of emergency he would never want to give them up? Remember how they were so ridiculed for suggesting Murphy is going to try holding on to his emergency powers? Doesn’t seem so ridiculous now.