By: Kelsey Cook, Office of the Vice President for Research, and Leslie Wells, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI
As COVID-19 began spreading across the United States, governors found themselves needing to react—and fast. Many began issuing executive orders aimed at slowing the spread of the virus. O’Neill IUPUI’s Peter Federman and Cali Curley are examining the executive orders issued and future ramifications of those decisions.
Federman and Curley, both assistant professors in the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, are looking at executive orders issued from all 50 states. They are coding each one to gain a better understanding of which orders worked and which ones did not make an impact.
“We want to know what orders are coming from the top level, when they were put into place, what they do and don’t do, how they delegate power, and how they differ from state to state,” Federman said. “We are building a very robust data set that will help us understand the overall progression of how the country and each state has adapted using these executive orders.”