Andrea Seastrand (“Newsom is destroying our economy,” May 14) has a very narrow understanding of our Constitution. First, “God” is never mentioned; our founders created a government which received its rights and our freedoms, from “We the People,” of which one purpose, as stated in the preamble, is to ” … promote the general welfare … .”
We were founded on the ideal of “freedom” but also on “equality,” enshrining the notion of “public safety” in our Constitution and upheld by the Supreme Court. The privilege of the “writ of habeas corpus” (Article 1, Section 9) was suspended during both the Civil War and WWII in the name of public safety. The only emergency Donald Trump has declared, besides his wall, has been that meat-cutters need to die so you can buy bacon.
The 10th Amendment states “anything that was not given to the federal government and not banned by the Constitution is a power of the states.” In 1970, we passed the California Emergency Services Act, a 197-page detailed document which states:
“During a … state of emergency, the governor may suspend any regulatory statute, or statute prescribing the procedure for conduct of state business, or the orders, rules, or regulations of any state agency … where the governor determines and declares that strict compliance with any statute, order, rule, or regulation would in any way prevent, hinder, or delay the mitigation of the effects of the emergency.”
Newsom is prohibited from confiscating your guns or seizing the press, but nonetheless the stay-at-home order does constitute “due process.”
Kurt Montgomery
Los Osos
This article appears in May 21-31, 2020.
People forget about that Equality part.
RE: “…the stay-at-home order does constitute “due process.””
With all due respect Kurt:
Health is a personal responsibility and the government has no right to force any so-called public health edicts because there is no “state of emergency”. According to California law, an “epidemic” must exceed the normal parameters of a typical illness in order to qualify for the governor to declare a state of emergency. Since COVID-19 is a flu-like illness, we compare the number of typical seasonal flu deaths (6,000) to CV-19 deaths (under 3,000) and can easily see that this PLANdemic is not an epidemic. Therefore, orders to shelter at home, wear face masks, and all the other suspensions and forced behavior modifications are null and void by law.
“Therefore, orders to shelter at home, wear face masks, and all the other suspensions and forced behavior modifications are null and void by law.”
Ah yes… the Donald J Trump method of interpreting law.