The illegal act is arbitrarily shutting down the ability to earn a livelihood. When these cases make their way through the courts I’m thinking they’re going to side with the Musks, not the Newsoms.
That would be illegal, but isn't what is happening. An outright ban on all work would certainly be unconstitutional (life liberty, pursuit of happiness etc). But temporarily shutting down a business because of a virus, safety issues, lack of insurance, pollution worries, failure to pay taxes, inadequate lighting in the parking lots, to preserve a crime scene, or because the road out front needs work ... local governments close businesses all the time. So long as the reason is reasonable and the shutdown is temporary the courts will find it acceptable.
If you want to win in court, disobeying a law is generally not the best path. Musk isn't Rosa Parks. Musk doesn't have to be arrested before he can challenge the law in court. By acting like this he isn't helping his case(s). I'm sure his lawyers are pulling their hair out.
Politically, Musk is shooting himself in the foot. What if the local health department says that automotive factory workers must stay 10feet away from each other, all get respirators, get tested twice a day, and must take a month of covid safety training? Those will all be "reasonable" in the eyes of any court. That they would also kill any chance of Tesla turning a profit is political consequence of disobeying previous health orders.
One of those isn't in the Constitution, the other two are only protected against deprivation without due process.
Justice delayed is justice denied. When the courts themselves are grinding to a halt with the lockdown who knows when injunctive relief would arrive?
> I'm sure his lawyers are pulling their hair out.
Ha! With the rest of his shenanigans I’d be impressed if they have any left. The “pedo guy” episode must have caused a few Rogaine scrips.
> Politically, Musk is shooting himself in the foot. What if the local health department says that automotive factory workers must stay 10feet away from each other, all get respirators, get tested twice a day, and must take a month of covid safety training? Those will all be "reasonable" in the eyes of any court. That they would also kill any chance of Tesla turning a profit is political consequence of disobeying previous health orders.
If they target specifically Tesla with rules like that it’d be thrown out for being vindictive and targeted.
If they try to impose those type of rules on the entire State they’ll have a class action of businesses challenging them.
If rules are going to be imposed they need to be debated on facts, written by a legislative body, and signed into law. Not shot from the hip on a daily basis on the current executive’s whims.
There is no general Constitutional right to commercial activity.
A persons right to pursue happiness does not trump other people's rights to do the same.
Willing spreading an infectious virus is not an act of nature.
Event still, this isn't HIV we're talking about here, and it will presumably be seasonal going forward. Most people who even contract this will walk away perfectly fine.
There are currently 36 million jobless claims from the shutdowns. How long be before streets everywhere become inundated with freshly homeless people? How long until people riot? When does the shutdown outweigh people's livelihood and freedom?
The shutdown isn't a solution, it's a way to buy time and prevent things from getting worse while we adapt and find solutions.
If you want to shift the debate from whether the shutdown has merit to how long it should last then it's a matter of judging the progress being made.
As for the nature of the virus, it's certainly not as deadly as HIV but it's a lot more infectious. Most people would be fine but if half the population is infected the resulting death toll will be enormous. I wouldn't presume it will be season either, from what I can tell the consensus is that we will be dealing with this until vaccination is widespread.
You can enforce it on how a government responds to natural events, however.
If your answer is no, please make the same argument but replace the word 'mask' with 'pants'.
The argument being made for warheads is the same as that for staying inside: not doing so would pose an outsize danger to others. Whether I agree or disagree isn't the point personally, I'm arguing that the curtailments follow from the same basic premise and are likely legal. We'll see how it plays out.
Business taking insufficient safety measures pose a risk to their employees and the wider community. Due to the broad and delayed nature of the risk and the effort required to deal with it, it's not clear that business will voluntarily take the best course of action.
For the sake of protecting employees from unsafe conditions and protecting the wider community from secondary effects in a timely manner it's better to implement broad measures first and deal with the details later.
The cost of temporary unemployment is nothing compared to the cost of surpassing the capacity of healthcare services.