Good morning and Happy Coronahog Day! Feels like déjà vu all over again, doesn’t it? Seven weeks of waking up to the same shelter-in-place orders every morning. The only thing that changes are fresh examples of irrational and (most likely) unconstitutional government overreach.
Mom: “OK, so why are you here?”
Officer: “Because your daughter is going to play at other people’s home and you’re allowing it to happen.”
[…]
Officer: “Stop having your kid go by other people’s home.”
That is a disturbing exchange for many reasons, not least of which is the patronizing attitude of the male officer, haranguing the mom about whether she understands that “we’re in a stay-at-home order right now.”
No “Officer Friendly” smiles, no laughs about how ridiculous the times are we find ourselves in, no modest chagrin over having to politely ask the mom to keep the child home. Nope. She gets scolded by a power-happy hall monitor for not having a signed pass.
More disturbing is the disequilibrium it causes in us. We’re watching a police action over an event so universal—a child playing at a friend’s house—that we feel like we’re having an out-of-body experience. It just feels so wrong.
Most unsettling is the implied question lurking under the surface: who snitched on the families?
To be fair to the officers, they’re just carrying out orders. But that’s what’s causing my cognitive vertigo.
Back on March 12, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued Executive Order #72 that declared that a “public health emergency” existed in Wisconsin. On March 25, his office issued a ‘safer-at-home’ order that specifically said, “all public and private gatherings of any number of people that are not part of a single household or living unit are prohibited.” That meant, as Evers tweeted, “no sleepovers, no play dates, and no dinner parties with friends and neighbors.”
His executive order and both ‘safer at home’ orders (they’ve extended the lock down until May 26 through a second order) appealed to specific provisions of Wisconsin law. I read them all and, while I’m no legal expert, it isn’t apparent to me on which statute Evers bases his authority to ban “private” gatherings among neighbors.
Under Section 252.02(3) of the Wisconsin Statutes, cited in the safer at home orders, the Department of Health Services “may close schools and forbid public gatherings in schools, churches, and other places to control outbreaks and epidemics” (emphasis mine). Note that it says nothing about private gatherings.
The only other provision that might plausibly be interpreted as authority to impose restrictions on private gatherings is in Section 323.12(4)(b), which says that the governor may “Issue such orders as he or she deems necessary for the security of persons and property.” Does that include forbidding private citizens from visiting their neighbors?
While there is a place for emergency rule, this series of orders in Wisconsin—and similar orders in many other states—seem to violate our essential constitutional rights to associate, assemble, worship and travel. At what point do state restrictions on individual liberty become unconstitutional?
I’m all for cooperating with federal, state and local authorities when asked to do my part in a crisis, but even efforts to keep the public safe during a declared crisis have to be constitutional.