a fine point ignored by most of our neighbors;

Here’s the question that interviewers should be putting to governors:

“If, in normal times, you were to announce as a matter of executive fiat that people must close their businesses, could not assemble in groups over a certain size, and must stay home except for travel you deem essential, it would seem an absurdity. People would say that you were grossly, and obviously, exceeding your authority.

That you are doing this now, therefore, suggests that you believe there must be some explicit grant of power, somewhere in your state’s legal framework, that gives you the authority to do these things in response to this emergency. Can you tell us where we can read this statute, so that we may clearly understand its limits?”

Perhaps, for all I know, there are such grants of power in various state codes and constitutions. But it would be good to force these people to provide some clarity.........read comments...........