(04-21-2020, 12:40 PM)cardcrimson Wrote: Did you read the Bloomberg article? Barr stated that the US might join lawsuits brought by others IF they believe the state is impinging on civil liberties or hampering national commerce AND the governor refuses to make adjustments after discussions. If one state's actions hamper another's or the greater country as a whole, seems reasonable.
"Impairing national commerce" is not a free-standing cause of action, my friend, and the state's police powers are not susceptible to abstract federal interference provided they do not discriminate between in-state and out-of-state commerce. The (limited) exception is for dormant commerce clause issue, but the usual skeptics of dormant commerce clause theories are Federalist Society folks like Barr, so he should, in theory, be the last person to object to exercises of State Sovereignty. But I suspect you don't care, and I don't think Barr does either. It's all just rhetorical, and that's my point: the White House leadership has evinced absolutely no interest in stopping the blame game, and is now deploying the "Justice" department to shake down governors who'd prefer to listen to science than politics.
It's also not at all clear to me how the Justice Department is well positioned to second-guess governors as to whether conditions on the ground warrant extending shelter in place restrictions. Is there an epidemiology arm of DOJ that I've missed all these years?