The Constitution and COVID

[_Icarus]

I'm surprised I haven't seen this discussed here so I'll go ahead and start.

Do protesters have a Constitutional right to protest in large groups, violating executive orders and do the States have a Constitutional right to enforce quarantine restrictions?

[_Icarus]

I found a couple of articles about this and it appears the states have broad authority to impose quarantines via executive orders.

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlaw ... ation.html

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/con ... -situation

[_Res Ipsa]

The states have some inherent powers through their police power, which is a judicial based doctrine. Police power allows the state to infringe on certain constitutional rights to protect the health and safety of the public. In my state, these powers are expressly given to the Governor by statute. The power is not unlimited, and would have to meet something like the strict scrutiny test.

One of the earliest cases involved something like a quarantine for yellow fever. Courts have been pretty supportive of states when it comes to disease outbreaks.

In my state, violating one of these orders is a gross misdemeanor.