By: Rep. Bryan Cutler

The Pennsylvania Department of Health is proposing major changes to state health regulations that would significantly expand that department’s authority.

These powers would allow the department to enter private residences without a warrant, and access private health information without consent.

These allegedly “new” standards are not new at all. They mirror the sweeping powers that former Gov. Tom Wolf claimed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he locked down schools and imposed mask mandates in schools and childcare centers. I clearly remember the fights those lockdown measures provoked, as I stood strong against them as both the majority leader and as speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 2020-21.

The last time this kind of power grab happened, we fought back on multiple fronts.

We started in the Legislature, using the Joint Committee on Documents (a committee of executive branch officials and legislative leaders or their designees) to give our case against the mandates standing in court. The Legislature also passed two constitutional amendments that restricted the governor’s emergency powers, placing them on the ballot for the people to vote on and bolstering our standing in the court cases.

Then you, the citizens of Pennsylvania, voted in support of those two constitutional amendments, which ensured the emergency powers of the governor could never be used again to unilaterally extend lockdowns and mandates against the people of our commonwealth.

Finally, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that former Gov. Tom Wolf and the Department of Health had overstepped the bounds of executive power in imposing mask mandates in schools and childcare facilities. And, as Spotlight PA reported, a federal judge ruled that “key components” of the governor’s COVID-19 mitigation strategy were “unconstitutional,” including “the decision to temporarily shut down businesses and limit how many Pennsylvanians can gather in one place.”

Because of these battles, we believed we had ensured that Pennsylvanians’ freedoms would not be trampled in the name of public health ordinances. Now I believe those safeguards are once again at risk.

A 500-page document, which would completely rewrite Pennsylvania’s Health Code without any legislative input, would put the results we fought for five years ago at risk. Some of the new regulations strike me as blatantly unconstitutional, with the most troubling being the search of schools and homes without warrants in the name of public health.

I am a firm believer that there are changes needed to the way we deal with public health in Pennsylvania. My wife and some of my children work in healthcare, as did I before becoming a state representative. I recognize the importance of public health and the professionals who work to protect it. But that does not mean abandoning accountability and constitutional protections.

Critically, we need better transparency, not more mandates that would allow action to be taken behind the backs of our citizens. Look no further than the debacle of messaging that has occurred in Lancaster County on the issue of public health and the measles outbreak as proof that clearer lines of transparency are needed.

I am also deeply concerned about the ability of the Pennsylvania Department of Health to protect the personal information it collects through contact tracing and disease surveillance.

When I tested positive for COVID-19 in 2021, I was contacted as part of the contact tracing process. I was then contacted a few weeks later to tell me that my data had been stolen as part of a data breach. If the Department of Health is going to be granted even greater access to Pennsylvanians’ private information, the people need to be assured that data will be protected. My own experience makes we wonder whether any confidence is warranted.

This is a battle I did not think I would have to fight again after the victories we secured on the ballot and in the courts back in 2021. But once again, we have a portion of the executive branch attempting to claim the power to impose harsh regulations and mandates in the name of public health. I opposed those efforts at the beginning of this decade, and I will continue to oppose them now.

Public health matters. So do individual liberty, privacy, transparency and the constitutional separation of powers. Pennsylvania should never be forced to choose between protecting its citizens and protecting their rights.

 

State Rep. Bryan Cutler is the Republican Chairman of the PA House Education Committee and the former House Speaker. His district is in Lancaster County.

This originally appeared in LNP on September 13, 2026.

The views expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Susquehanna Valley Center for Public Policy.

Nothing contained here should be considered as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any legislation.