HARRISBURG — A pandemic power struggle that has raged for a year between Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor and its Republican-led Legislature will land on voters’ laps next month in the form of two proposed constitutional amendments that could limit the length of disaster emergencies.

There are four statewide ballot questions being decided during the May 18 primary. The others would put anti-discrimination language into the state constitution and give paid fire and rescue departments the same borrowing power that volunteer departments have had for decades.

Republicans wasted little time getting the disaster emergency questions onto the ballot after losing a court ruling in July over a similar resolution that would have ended Gov. Tom Wolf’s disaster declaration. Constitutional amendments must pass both chambers in two consecutive, two-year sessions but do not require the governor’s backing.

GOP leaders have denounced the wording for the referendums, developed by the Wolf administration, as loaded language. Because they are ballot questions, all voters are eligible to participate in the primary.

“They clearly wrote it in a way for it to fail,” Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre, said in February, arguing the state’s disaster emergency has gone on too long. “Look, even a benevolent dictator is still a dictator. And when you have unilateral control, one individual, that’s what you have.”

It’s unclear how much of Wolf’s authority would be curtailed by passage of the amendments. Wolf’s aides argue that much of the administration’s authority to impose social-distancing restrictions and shut down buildings or business activity comes from the Disease Prevention and Control Act, not the disaster declarations.

But Republican leaders say that without a disaster declaration, Wolf may not be able to enforce Disease Prevention and Control Act measures, and that regulations that have been waived under Wolf’s direction would return.

“An emergency declaration is meant to give the executive branch the power to triage a crisis, not a vehicle for the governor to enact, amend and suspend laws and regulations for an excessive period of time,” said Senate GOP caucus spokesperson Erica Clayton Wright.

Voters will decide whether disaster emergency declarations should expire after three weeks, rather than three months under existing law. A disaster declaration could only be extended, even in part, with approval by both legislative chambers. Lawmakers could end a disaster emergency with majority votes in each legislative chamber, instead of needing the two-thirds margin required to override a veto.