Murphy – At the Cherokee County Republican Party meeting Thursday, Commissioner Dan Eichenbaum urged local business owners to stand up in defiance of Gov. Roy Cooper’s shutdown order.
“Several parts of the Bill of Rights have been trashed, ignored, and thrown out illegally and unconstitutionally,” Eichenbaum said. “The Fifth Amendment says that the government is prohibited from depriving you of ‘life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’ When you force restaurants and businesses to close and say they are not essential, and when you imprison people in their homes and arrest them when they come out of their homes, you are in violation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.”
Cooper’s Stay-at-Home Order – which began on March 30 and forced certain businesses to shut down to prevent the spread of COVID-19 – has been modified twice, the latest of which took effect Friday. Since March, more than 1 million North Carolinians have filed for unemployment relief, and state officials estimate a multibillion-dollar shortfall due to a loss of revenue from the shutdowns. County and municipal governments also
expect revenue shortfalls, which will impact just about every aspect of life.
In fact, several local businesses in Andrews and Murphy have expressed concern about not being able to reopen due to revenue lost during the shutdown period. Eichenbaum said business owners should have stood up for their rights from the start.
“Every single one of the business owners in this county should have said, ‘No way. You cannot take away our rights,’ ” Eichenbaum said. “It is up to individuals to decide how much risk they want to take.”
A woman at the GOP meeting agreed with Eichenbaum’s sentiments but questioned how to stand up against “tyranny” under the threat of being arrested for disobeying the governor’s order.
“We have to do it collectively,” Commissioner C.B. McKinnon responded. “We cannot stand alone. It has to be a movement of people that stand together, meaning all businesses open up.
“Dan and I are still trying to get our commission board to declare Cherokee County open for business. We still don’t have the support yet. You have to stand together or you all fall.”
Eichenbaum piggybacked those comments, saying the loss of life, liberty or property outweighs any punishment that may come from defying the governor’s shutdown order.
“Realistically, if you defy Cooper’s illegal and unconstitutional executive order, the penalty is a second-class misdemeanor,” Eichenbaum said “All police can do is issue you a summons; they cannot put you in shackles and drag you to jail. That means until you appear in court, nothing happens.
“The backlog of [court] cases will probably take three years. When they finally open court, your summons may not even be heard. It may be dismissed.”
Eichenbaum also urged churches to stand up for their rights guaranteed under the First Amendment, which a federal judge reiterated on May 16 when he blocked the enforcement of restrictions Cooper ordered affecting indoor religious services during the coronavirus pandemic.
After the governor modified his Stay-at-Home order Friday, the Town of Murphy rescinded the pedestrian curfew that had been in place since March 20. The town’s State of Emergency declaration remains in effect.