Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

jsonline.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 604 posts

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#91

Post by albntomat0 »

kumarvvr wrote: post #75
npongratz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One member of the court had just left the court, could have easily been 4-4 or another combination The incumbent (Kelly) was voted out of office about a month ago, and the winning challenger (Karofsky) won't fill the seat until August 1, 2020. Kelly sided with the majority opinion in this decision.

I don't understand that when the incumbent has been voted out, why does he/she still have powers to make decisions? Shouldn't they be some sort of stand-in and only take care of routine / bureaucratic tasks? It's a system that is ripe for making these already out people do stuff that is ideological and hardline, while the voters obviously don't want it.

It's a standard transition period. Just like how presidential elections are in November while inauguration's in January.

I remember that a ton of wonky stuff has happened in the "lame duck" period, but it does seem to be standard.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#92

Post by albntomat0 »

vxNsr wrote: post #78
kumarvvr wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand that when the incumbent has been voted out, why does he/she still have powers to make decisions? Shouldn't they be some sort of stand-in and only take care of routine / bureaucratic tasks? It's a system that is ripe for making these already out people do stuff that is ideological and hardline, while the voters obviously don't want it.

I'm more confused about a court that has an even number of members... what do they do in ties?

They have 7. 1 will be replaced by another in August, based on a recent election.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#93

Post by asabjorn »

belltaco wrote: post #64
asabjorn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the legislature resists, or the court doesn't grant the stay, that sucks, the bars and restaurants will open, people will get sick and die. Or maybe the Republicans will turn out correct and everything is fine. This assertion needs a citation. If this should be true either hospitalization must be so high that it overwhelms the health system, which was the original justification for the lockdown, or death rate mu…

>The 1.5 week old CDC report [1] shows same hospitalization rate as the flu for the vulnerable 65+ population, and less for the vulnerable Is the hospitalization rate based on how many got the disease or among the general population?

It’s across the whole population over the preceding week.

The CDC report key takeaways section is recommended reading

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#94

Post by erichocean »

DenisM wrote: post #28
ipsum2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been ruled on in Jacobson v. Massachusetts: > The Court's decision articulated the view that the freedom of the individual must sometimes be subordinated to the common welfare and is subject to the police power of the state. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts

A lot of Civil Rights rulings in force in 1905 were overturned in the century since. See my sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23173737

There weren't any "Civil Rights" rulings (note capital letters) prior to the mid-1960s, as the legislation and legal system supporting it didn't exist prior to that.[0]

Modern "Civil Rights" is a parallel legal system in the US that overrides the former Anglo-derived legal system (though both are still on the books) whenever they conflict.

That's why you get people on the Right muttering about "muh Constitution" wondering why Supreme Court rulings that were considered impossible 70 years ago are commonplace today. Civil Rights legislation even overrides the Bill of Rights.

It is what is. But it's 100% anachronistic to being talking about Civil Rights rulings in 1905—that's roughly equivalent to discussing Marxist governance in ancient Rome.

----

To those downvoting, explain the right already lost in the 1st Amendment to Civil Rights: the right to be a racist asshole and choose who you associate with. That was 100% legal under any Anglo-derived system (hell, it's literally in the Bill of Rights!), but it's obviously not legal under a Civil Rights regime. Hence, what was once legal is now illegal, "muh Constitution" and "muh Bill of Rights" or not.

And why didn't it take an amendment to the Constitution to lose that right? Precisely because Civil Rights established its own legal system and justifications, allowing the Supreme Court to re-interpret previously held rights through the lens of Civil Rights whenever convenient. Boom: no more legislation and laws supporting racist assholes.

This is also why things like The Federalist Society and their quote-unquote originalists are so potentially damaging. When they say "originalist", they literally mean the original Anglo-derived legal system (complete with racist assholes) vs. the new Civil Rights-derived legal system. That's what the conflict is about.

Nothing I've written here should be remotely controversial.

[0] Not strictly true, the rulings started in the mid-1950s with Brown v. Board of Education, and you can find various overrides of the Anglo-derived system even further back.... However, I would argue the legal (as opposed to ethical) basis for earlier decisions is dubious, and didn't actually arrive until the mid-1960s.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#95

Post by mchusma »

“If a forest fire breaks out, there is no time for debate. Action is needed. The governor could declare an emergency and respond accordingly. But in the case of a pandemic, which lasts month after month, the governor cannot rely on emergency powers indefinitely,” Roggensack wrote for the majority.

Refreshing to see some pressure for democracy to resume.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#96

Post by djannzjkzxn »

daenz wrote: post #31
TylerE wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the Bill of Rights give the police the right to arrest you for driving drunk?

It comes across as bad faith to ignore my question and expect me to answer yours. What is the definition of "can harm" that excludes activities like leaving my stove burner on?

You could be charged with crimes (eg. arson, child endangerment, negligent homicide) depending on the scenario in which you left the burner on.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#97

Post by valuearb »

dragonwriter wrote: post #72
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quarantine for people who are sick or known to be exposed is definitely legal. But orders for everyone to stay at home are pretty much unprecedented.

> But orders for everyone to stay at home are pretty much unprecedented. Orders prohibiting most gatherings for non-essential purposes (with essential defined by the entity issuing the ruling), shuttering non-essential businesses, etc., very similar to today's shelter-in-place orders were fairly common in the 1918-1919 flu epidemic. They aren't at all unprecedented in the US.

That doesn’t make them constitutional.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#98

Post by singlow »

daenz wrote: post #80
bsder wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine. I doubt you're arguing in good faith, but let's go there ... Vaccines. The government has the right to require your children to have vaccines before they go to school because not doing so has extremely harmful effects on others when we drop below herd immunity. Smoking. The government has the right to create anti-smoking laws because the market simply wouldn't produce a non-smoking bar that wouldn't affect the…

>Shall I go on? You should, because you'll quickly realize that there are far, far more activities that potentially cause harm to others than there are laws that prohibit them. Also, vaccines and smoking have a history that are peppered with lawsuits about their legality, so as far as examples go, they are not the ones I would hold up as evidence of laws that people clearly think are constitutional. The flu killed ~5…

The government does not have to protect its ability to ban potentially harmful actions by banning every possible harmful action. The purpose of the legislative representatives is to make judgement calls about which things have enough potential harm to warrant restriction. I really don't understand the argument here that because not all harmful actions are banned, that banning harmful actions is not constitutional. Am I just not understanding what your argument is?

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#99

Post by dragonwriter »

valuearb wrote: post #97
dragonwriter wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But orders for everyone to stay at home are pretty much unprecedented. Orders prohibiting most gatherings for non-essential purposes (with essential defined by the entity issuing the ruling), shuttering non-essential businesses, etc., very similar to today's shelter-in-place orders were fairly common in the 1918-1919 flu epidemic. They aren't at all unprecedented in the US.

That doesn’t make them constitutional.

The claim was that they were unprecedented, not that they were unconstitutional.

OTOH, states (unlike the federal government) have general police powers, so their legislation is constitutional absent an express constitutional prohibition, whereas the feds need specific constitutional authority.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#100

Post by apostacy »

asabjorn wrote: post #57
sterlind wrote: post #47

Both sides: courts are supposed to apply the law to the facts. Lawyers guide judges in their arguments, and the court weighs each one, resolving conflicts through tests and precedent. Read the text of the decision before bringing politics into it. IANAL, but browsing the text: - The ruling cites the Wisconsin constitution. - Governors can issue emergency orders (and maybe rules?) effective for 150 days. - There's a d…

> If the legislature resists, or the court doesn't grant the stay, that sucks, the bars and restaurants will open, people will get sick and die. Or maybe the Republicans will turn out correct and everything is fine. This assertion needs a citation. If this should be true either hospitalization must be so high that it overwhelms the health system, which was the original justification for the lockdown, or death rate mu…

Meanwhile, Sweden never had shelter in place orders, and they did not fare worse than France or Ireland.
Post reply on HN