What is the point of this all? So Biden doesn't have the legal authority to declare lock downs.
One would think a prominent liberal author would know the limits of presidential power.
He doesn't have the legal authority to disenfranchise millions of American voters either.
That hasn't stopped him.
Now the unfounded allegations are up to millions of disenfranchised voters huh?
Wow you guys are a hoot. No wonder you've been fooled into thinking ol'Trumpybear won.
Doesn't seem clear governors have this power either yet here we are....?
How exactly do a few thousand old people dying in your state from a cold give your governor the right to mandate anything?
Happens every year.
It is becoming clear.
"Some ways in which shutdowns are applied may indeed be unconstitutional, as when a mayor allows a civic group but not a church to convene in numbers, or when a gun shop gets treated less favorably than comparable small businesses because someone in the governor’s office isn’t fond of Second Amendment rights. Those cases, important as they are, change only a few lockdown outcomes. And the remedy that follows — making restrictions neutral and even‐handed — is different from lifting those restrictions.
As for the argument that lockdowns as such are broadly unconstitutional, that one has begun to reach judges — and fallen on its face.
Business people in Pennsylvania and Michigan have already sued to reopen their businesses, and the judiciary in both states has said no. In Pennsylvania, while three Justices partially dissented, they
did so without endorsing the plaintiffs’ contentions of unconstitutionality, instead indicating that they deserved more latitude to develop their case. The Michigan ruling
upholding Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s order against challenge was handed down by a judge who earlier served as deputy legal counsel to former Republican Governor John Engler and has advised the state’s Federalist Society chapter."
If you want to know whether something is unconstitutional, one group you might ask is judges. And in early rounds of litigation, a reasonably clear—and, to many of us, unsurprising—answer is emerging.
www.cato.org
"During the Spanish Flu pandemic a century ago, prohibition on public assemblies and closure of businesses were common. Were any of these steps ever successfully challenged as unconstitutional? I haven’t been able to find a single instance of that. "