We’ve all experienced crises and emergencies in our lives. The trick to overcoming them is to take them seriously, but not to overreact. For us married folks, one important way to do this is to share our concerns and our decision-making with our spouse. In business or government, we need to balance leadership with broader collaboration and shared responsibility. That way, brash unilateral decisions won’t turn into overreactions.

As a serial entrepreneur and concerned citizen from central Pennsylvania, I’ve closely watched Governor Wolf’s handling of the 2020 pandemic — and I think he could have taken this advice to heart. He’s made every decision about Pennsylvania’s pandemic response on his own, without transparency as to his reasoning, and ignored input from the Legislature and the business community.

I’m not opposed to limited emergency measures that bypass the Legislature in times of great need, but Wolf has turned them into a permanent governing style that has devastated small businesses. That’s why I will vote “Yes” on two ballot measures being proposed in the May 18 election. Both of the measures will amend the state constitution as it regards emergency declarations, so that future governors can’t abuse them to make unilateral decisions indefinitely.

The first ballot question enables the Legislature to vote to end a governor’s emergency declaration. The second seeks to limit emergency declarations to 21 days and requires legislative approval after that. Now that Wolf has kept our state of emergency going for over a year, it’s reasonable to insist on checks and balances in the future.

After all, just look at where one year of unilateral decision-making can take us. Wolf’s shutdown has spiked job losses and business closures to unprecedented levels, while out-of-work Pennsylvanians had their unemployment checks delayed for months. Many parents working from home have not had access to open schools for their kids. Relief funds for nursing homes, where over half of Pennsylvania’s COVID deaths occurred, were misallocated — and nursing homes are claiming they were illegally withheld.

Wolf’s business closures were not balanced or data-driven. There was no real rationale for which businesses received waivers to remain open, nor were there any transparent metrics for when those closed could reopen. When Wolf released his “red, yellow, green” reopening plan in 2020, many counties questioned why their reopening was being slow-walked, but this data was not provided. The Legislature eventually voted unanimously to force Wolf to provide this data via his Office of Open Records, and incredibly, Wolf threatened to veto their decision (though he did not do so).

Instead of working with the Legislature and the citizens of Pennsylvania on his pandemic response, Wolf has positioned himself as an adversary of both. Instead of taking our input and that of our elected representatives, he’s acted unilaterally and capriciously and wouldn’t say why. In response, the Legislature has given Pennsylvanians an opportunity to rein in the governor’s executive overreach on May 18 by voting “Yes” on the two constitutional amendments.

While Pennsylvanians elect a governor to lead in times of crisis, we do not elect an unaccountable king. That’s why for me and millions of others, my “Yes” vote on these amendments won’t be a difficult choice.

Rob Shearer owns and leads several companies focused on supply chain logistics in Central Pennsylvania.