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I don't think it's something that could really be done in the US. We have a constitutional right to move freely between and among the states.

HarryHirsch 7y ago
That's theory colliding with practice. In theory we can't and the Republican originalists in the rural states would agree because it suits their wordview, but in practice we must because nothing else will save the urban coastal states where the Democratic "living constitution" folks live.
macintux 7y ago
You'd have to go to the courts to get a transportation ban overthrown, and they'd be reluctant to intervene. By the time you were successful, the crisis would (please, hopefully) be over.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  Getting 5 people on the Supreme Court to say "no let the pandemic run its course, even if it costs 10s or 100s of thousands of deaths" would be difficult.
JamesBarney 7y ago
Can you quote any practicing constitutional lawyers who believe the courts will stop the federal government from restricting cross state movement during the worst pandemic of our lifetime? Everyone I've read has basically said as long as it's necessary and temporary in a time of emergency it will fly.
jmalicki 7y ago
According to this take it is well-settled law from previous epidemics that this is constitutional. "In 1824, the Supreme Court in Gibbons v. Ogden alluded to a state’s authority to quarantine under the police powers. In 1902, the Court directly addressed a state’s power to quarantine an entire geographic area in Compagnie Francaise de Navigation a Vapeur v. Louisiana State Board of Health, where both the law and its implementation were upheld as valid exercises of the state’s police power. A shipping company in this case challenged an interpretation of a state statute that conferred upon the state board of health the authority to exclude healthy persons, whether they came from without or within the state, from a geographic area infested with a disease. The shipping company alleged that the statute as interpreted interfered with interstate commerce, and thus was an unconstitutional violation of the Commerce Clause. The Court rejected this argument, holding that although the statute may have had an effect on commerce, it was not unconstitutional. In a subsequent case, the Court made clear that at least where Congress has not taken action, it is “well settled” that states may impose quarantines to prevent the spread of disease even though quarantines “affect interstate commerce." Pages 8-9 of "Federal and State Quarantine and Isolation Authority" by the Congressional Research Service (2014) https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33201.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33201.pdf

HarryHirsch 7y ago

That's theory colliding with practice. In theory we can't and the Republican originalists in the rural states would agree because it suits their wordview, but in practice we must because nothing else will save the urban coastal states where the Democratic "living constitution" folks live.

macintux 7y ago

You'd have to go to the courts to get a transportation ban overthrown, and they'd be reluctant to intervene. By the time you were successful, the crisis would (please, hopefully) be over.

JamesBarney 7y ago
Getting 5 people on the Supreme Court to say "no let the pandemic run its course, even if it costs 10s or 100s of thousands of deaths" would be difficult.

JamesBarney 7y ago

Can you quote any practicing constitutional lawyers who believe the courts will stop the federal government from restricting cross state movement during the worst pandemic of our lifetime? Everyone I've read has basically said as long as it's necessary and temporary in a time of emergency it will fly.

jmalicki 7y ago

According to this take it is well-settled law from previous epidemics that this is constitutional. "In 1824, the Supreme Court in Gibbons v. Ogden alluded to a state’s authority to quarantine under the police powers. In 1902, the Court directly addressed a state’s power to quarantine an entire geographic area in Compagnie Francaise de Navigation a Vapeur v. Louisiana State Board of Health, where both the law and its implementation were upheld as valid exercises of the state’s police power. A shipping company in this case challenged an interpretation of a state statute that conferred upon the state board of health the authority to exclude healthy persons, whether they came from without or within the state, from a geographic area infested with a disease. The shipping company alleged that the statute as interpreted interfered with interstate commerce, and thus was an unconstitutional violation of the Commerce Clause. The Court rejected this argument, holding that although the statute may have had an effect on commerce, it was not unconstitutional. In a subsequent case, the Court made clear that at least where Congress has not taken action, it is “well settled” that states may impose quarantines to prevent the spread of disease even though quarantines “affect interstate commerce." Pages 8-9 of "Federal and State Quarantine and Isolation Authority" by the Congressional Research Service (2014) https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33201.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33201.pdf