It's constitutional as an exercise of California's power under the 10th Amendment. This is a pretty well settled area of Constitutional law, as the US has had plenty of epidemics of various diseases (cholera, typhus, yellow fever, influenza, and even bubonic plague) in the 19th and early 20th centuries that provided opportunity to litigate these issues.
It will be interesting to see when this inevitably does affect political mobilization, or even just voting. There's a decent chance that we'll see some of this before the end of the year (and very possibly on Election Day).
IME, it's somewhat common for those in positions of authority (employers, municipalities, etc.) to simply assert a legal position that benefits their leadership, without mentioning that courts may disagree. In most cases there are no repercussions for being misleading in that way, aside from eroding the trust of those lied to.
The legal system is explicitly set up to encourage this. Laws don't actually spell out in detail every situation to which they might apply - there's no way a legislator can foresee this. Rather, the laws provide general guidelines of legislative intent, and then if two firms disagree on what that means, they take it to court, where the judge and often jury look at the specifics of the case, the text of the laws, how similar past cases were decided, and the general principle that similar situations should be decided in similar ways. Then they come down with a decision, which becomes case law by which future cases are decided.
If you want to succeed in Western countries it's worth internalizing this. In the absence of legal advice to the contrary, just assume that what you're doing is legal and assert it confidently, and most people won't challenge you. If they do, it helps to have lots of money to afford lawyers on retainer, so that a.) you're more likely to actually be right when you assert that what you're doing is legal and b.) you can craft very good arguments to persuade the judge and jury if it turns out you're wrong.
Can you explain? The second paragraph of the majority decision quotes the Louisiana law which it upholds:
"In case that any parish, town, or city, or any portion thereof, shall become infected with any contagious or infectious disease, to such an extent as to threaten the spread of such disease to the other portions of the state, the state board of health shall issue its proclamation declaring the facts and ordering it in quarantine, and shall order the local boards of health in other parishes, towns, and cities to quarantine against said locality"
That sure sounds like it's talking about local quarantines to me.
No judge is going to sign off on an injunction when an epidemic is raging nationwide, with a large number of confirmed cases on the west coast [1]. I'll eat crow if you find one with that much chutzpa.
They may in extreme circumstances - the courts still will function and I'm sure we're going to hear a lot of BS challenges to this restriction - but if authorities step over the line and, for instance, close down a small political rally of 300 while an opponent's rally of 500 is unaffected, then injunctions will happen.
They only say that there is power to prevent movement between states or coming into the USA. And they provide no proof that states have the power to quarentine.
At least on its surface, I'm kinda okay with this 1000-person rule for several reasons:
- I've already accepted that fire codes can legitimately limit the number of people in a building.
- The rule is agnostic with respect to the purpose of the meeting. E.g., it's not obviously being used to suppress political or cultural movements.
- It has a real, plausible purpose for public safety.
That being said, I can also see some valid reasons against it:
- It sets precedent, which is a powerful factor in the U.S. court system.
- The 1000-person rule seems a bit arbitrary. I would think the number needs to be much smaller for the effect to be meaningful. And I'm guessing something more nuanced is what's really needed, for example spacing between persons, air recirculation / flow rates, frequency of surface cleaning vs. # persons present, etc.
- It implicitly discriminates what kinds of groups can meet as before. One salient example would be that Christian mega-churches and really large Roman Catholic parishes couldn't meet as before.
- It also potentially prevents mass protest marches, depending on the wording of the ordinance, and how willing protestors are to ignore the ordinance.
> One salient example would be that Christian mega-churches and really large Roman Catholic parishes couldn't meet as before.
This is one scenario where I wouldn't be surprised if there are groups that refuse to uphold the order and file lawsuits over it infringing on their right to practice their religion (and assemble, of course).
Reminds me that the church shooting in Texas was literally live streamed. The church I grew up with recorded mp3s of sermons at put them on their website, and that was way back in the very early 2000s.
Catholic churches will just add more masses. The schedules are flexible (any time from Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening counts as Sunday mass) and masses can be made much shorter than they usually are.
(I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. Consult an licensed attorney in your jurisdiction if you need legal advice.)
I do not believe this is unconstitutional. It is not meant to keep people from exercising their First Amendment rights. It's speech neutral (time/place/manner restrictions are subject to a much lower level of judicial scrutiny than content-based restrictions).
It only applies to events in facilities owned or managed by the City of San Francisco. It does not prevent people from gathering in public spaces, nor prevent private venue operators who want to hold large gatherings from doing so (not that anyone with a modicum of liability insurance wants to take such risks).
If your interpretation were correct then there could be no regulation of assembly at all. This is not correct and SCOTUS has already supported content-neutral time/place/manner restrictions on assembly, for more than a century iirc.
Saying "no gatherings of more than 1000" is facially legal. Plenty of protests have been told it's time to disperse before.
Furthermore, SCOTUS typically grants even wider powers in extigent circumstances. It is probably also legal to say "no gatherings at all, everyone back to your houses for the duration of this crisis". An example would be something like the boston bomber crisis, although I don't think it was litigated, that probably would have been found to be legal as well.
Freedom of speech is freedom of speech until you yell fire in a crowded theater. Pandemic related quarantines have been established as being constitutional in past rulings.
Actually, it is completely legal to yell fire in a crowded theater. What you are not allowed to I am not sure why people continue to use this tired excuse. What is illegal is wanting to harm people by yelling fire in a crowded theater that is not actually on fire, although it is also illegal to knowingly hide that the theater is on fire.
Nevertheless the reference itself comes from a really terrible case where the supreme court wrongly infringed on the rights of a war dissenter. It is not a concept that ought to be continued to be parroted.
> It only applies to events in facilities owned or managed by the City of San Francisco. It does not prevent people from gathering in public spaces or prevent private venue operators who want to hold large gatherings from doing so (not that anyone with a modicum of liability insurance wants to take such risks).
I'm almost certain you're incorrect due to the fact that basketball games will be effected and those aren't run by the city - teams remain private entities.
This does effect intentional private gatherings in public spaces, so if you have an extended family with more than 1000 people in it then your family reunion would be effected.
That said, this is absolutely legal and constitutional and that clarity lies on the backs of many historical disease outbreaks in the US that have resulted in similar restrictions.
I thought I read something the other day that said Chase Center was at least partially owned/operated by the City/County, but I could be mistaken. I might have mixed it up with Moscone Center.
The metaphorical "lizard hindbrain" of common law, the basis of US law, has a lot of powers the governments can enact in cases of public health, both de facto and de jure. While they are not allowed to extend it past that point, they have a lot of existing power in this space.
And... honestly... not a lot of sensible people are going to complain. Only the very fringes are going to object. The vast "middle" majority, in this case 98%+, is going to agree, conform, and be upset at the people objecting to the quarantine and who break it, not at the government. That counts for a lot too, in practice.
This site leans incredibly libertarian and most people are not going to have a problem with this at all. I've seen people objecting to CDC existing on the basis of federalism and the right of assembly and all kinds of other stuff and that's just so far off the reservation of well-decided legal doctrine that it might as well be freemen on the land.
It's frankly a very good idea. I'd even say to lower the number to 50 or maybe 100 at most. Some of the gatherings in South Korea that are believed to have been super-spreading events have been less than that (that church group).
Governments have a lot more power in the immediate moment than we like to confront; it isn’t until weeks or months later that courts (sometimes) get around to stopping them.
Wait till you read about what will happen to you if you decide to get TB and not take your meds. You'll be sovereign citizening your way into DOT before you make a new XDR strain for us.
In America, in most states, you do have the right to refuse treatment. Although mostly seen as a right to die for those who are terminal, cases have be brought up and gone either way for Christian Science followers depending on the situation/court.
> Some jurisdictions have resolved this tension through compromise: TB patients cannot be forced to undergo treatment, but they may be isolated or detained if they refuse treatment.
