This is where culture really matters. Almost every jurisdiction in the western world has faced this issue. Governments are issuing orders that, when push comes to shove, might not be 100% legitimate in the eyes of a court. In most countries that hasn't mattered. People acknowledge the covid problem and are obeying the "orders" despite them, perhaps, not having legal teeth. This requires trust. Like the current politi…
Nonsense. You say that as if the 50 States' legislatures have been wiped out by covid-19 and can't convene (or be convened, as the case may be) and pass laws. In the U.S. executive orders simply don't and can't have the force of law without the support of statutory law, not relative to civilians[0]. If you want a law, it needs to be passed as a statute by the appropriate legislature and must become law via all the us…
> In the U.S. executive orders simply don't and can't have the force of law without the support of statutory law, not relative to civilians[0]. If you want a law, it needs to be passed as a statute by the appropriate legislature and must become law via all the usual mechanisms.
This isn't true for many reasons including: the federal government controls a lot of what happens in the country indirectly and executive orders can decide what the law means (even if that meaning goes against what the law intended). Executive orders can for example suspend immigration. That absolutely affects civilians in an extremely practical way. More fundamentally, this kind of statement totally ignores how the legal system in the US works practically. Yes, there are laws, but laws are vague and must be interpreted. The federal government makes rules that interpret laws. These rules are what the law "is" practically. There is wide disagreement about what rules a particular law allows or doesn't allow. Executive orders can and do change these rules.
> That has nothing to do with corruption or taxes, and everything to do with long-established, well-thought-out, constitutional law. Yes, we're talking about constitutional law based on past skepticism of government
This is completely and utterly false! You shouldn't say these things without reading the opinion. Neither side made this argument at all and the court narrowly ruled that the rulemaking process had not been followed correctly.
> Also, the U.S. Constitution's requirement that State governments be (small-r) republican
There is no such requirement. This was also not about federal constitutional law, it was about the constitution of Wisconsin.
> extends the constraints on the President's EO power to the States' Governors.
Absolutely not. Each state has its own constitution, the federal constitution says no such thing at all. Also this case was not about an executive order!
> the Court might well rule that the clause does mean that Governors cannot impose emergency rules without statutory support
Again, please read the opinion before you say such things. The main argument was that some details of the law had not been followed.
> This was a decision by a court, not a question of whether the people support their governments
Only in the narrowest sense. It was a decision by a party, not a court. Republicans put their judges in power and the Republican judges made a decision. In that sense the US is absolutely unlike any other democracy in the world.