By Dave Dahl
SPRINGFIELD – Can President Biden’s decisions on COVID stand up in court? A University of Illinois expert says … mostly.
Professor Michael LeRoy, who specializes in labor and employment law, has studied the history of executive orders, all the way back to the first one, by President Martin Van Buren. “It pertained to a ten-hour limit on workers who were making ships for the Navy, and they went on strike and demanded a ‘grog break,’ which I assume is a break for alcohol,” LeRoy says. “And, in any event, he relented, but said you have to work at least ten hours a day.”
So LeRoy says Biden’s orders for federal and contract employees should probably be okay in courts’ eyes. Less so: ordering OSHA to draw emergency rules on mandates, which OSHA may not have the authority to do.
But this pandemic seems to have broken open a part of society we haven’t seen – at least not with the intensity it’s demonstrating. Many people refuse to take doctors’ and elected leaders’ word for it that coronavirus is real and dangerous, and that people must wear masks and get shots.
“This sort of rejection of safety precautions and questioning rules that are meant to keep us safe is disconcerting,” LeRoy says. “And it’s disconcerting, too, to see that the death rates in communities that push back are much higher than in communities that comply with mandates to vaccinate.”
LeRoy says the deep division over how to address coronavirus and government’s role in it speaks to how we organize ourselves into a society.
Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]
