CPC Submits Amicus Letter to State Supreme Court in Support of Fresno Business Challenging Newsom’s COVID Shutdown Orders

In 2018, Daryn Coleman and his wife invested their life savings into launching Ghost Golf, an indoor miniature golf venue. But, in 2020, their California business was shut down for more than a year due to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide business shutdown orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the governor’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy,” a color-coded regulatory scheme for counties and restrictions on businesses, indoor family entertainment centers were ordered to remain closed. The orders were catastrophic for California small businesses, including Ghost Golf.

Although the Blueprint system was suspended in 2021, the Governor “asserts continuing emergency powers under which he claims authority to re-impose Blueprint-like restrictions at any point,” and the California Dept. of Public Health likewise maintains it can re-impose such restrictions, according to Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF). Now, PLF is representing Daryn in his legal challenge against the Governor and Dept. of Public Health. Only the Legislature can make law under the California Constitution, not government bureaucrats.

California Policy Center has submitted an amicus letter supporting Ghost Golf and PLF’s Petition for Review before the California Supreme Court. As CPC explains in the letter, “the case raises real and serious public policy implications if the state legislature and executive officers continue abdicating their constitutional authorities and refuse to recognize and sustain the state’s non-delegation doctrine.”

Read CPC’s amicus letter here.