Let me try again on the framing, I agree it was a bit broad. This is an issue of CA prohibiting its citizens from going somewhere else to play a sport (soccer as it concerns us in this forum) where people will gather but also where it is legal in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID 19 during a global pandemic.
It's power reach that is the issue, not the fact that it impacts kiddie soccer, and it is that power reach that interferes with issues of interstate commerce, contracts, and substantive due process. Can you think of any regulation where one State prohibits its residents from participating in lawful activity while they’re in another State?
I think you’d agree with me that the State has a legitimate and compelling public interest in protecting the health and safety of its citizens, whether it is a global pandemic, local epidemic, or even noon on a Tuesday, right? For that reason I disagree that it matters for purposes of precedent setting whether this particular pandemic is a distinguishing context for such a reach. The distinguishing thing here is the reach itself in trying to combat a virus when compared to other pandemics.
Someone on this thread mentioned STD’s being down. So here’s an example. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are an enormous health crisis and is also categorized as a global pandemic, one we’ve been in for decades. I’m not 50 and I remember the hysteria of the AIDS epidemic in the 80s. Americans report approximately 20 million new STIs to the CDC every year and it is rising. Certain STIs are linked to cancer, not curable, and new cases of STIs are disproportionately high in people aged 15-24 who are the most sexually active (i.e. people spreading the disease) and do not treat because they are more often uninsured and the symptoms often don’t present until more serious health conditions arise. Sound familiar? Yet it is undisputed that all STIs are preventable and for this reason prostitution is illegal in CA. BUT, there is no law or regulation prohibiting Californians from hiring prostitutes while in certain counties in Nevada or abroad where it is legal. Why not? Similarly Los Angeles County a few years ago, using the justification that porn actors were spreading STIs into the community required the actors to wear condoms during filming in the County. So the locations of filming moved outside the County. If the justification is real, why the did the County not require all porn actors living in the County to always use protection when filming regardless of location?
Maybe it is because the positivity rate and death rate associated with STIs is within a range that is acceptable to society? Maybe it is because they are transmitted through sexual acts instead of through the air, but still to unsuspecting citizens. Those are ridiculous distinctions if the concern is about public health and eliminating a pandemic. You say no one cares about kiddie soccer, well who the hell cares enough about dudes hiring prostitutes to keep such a ban off the books?
Yes 300,000 Americans have died and it’s tragic and awful and fairly close to home for me. A person in my office lost her father last month to COVID. Is that what this is about, hitting a large number of deaths is justification for banning legal activity in another State? If so, what was the triggering number?
If we want prevent COVID from coming into CA, we need to lock it down, we need real quarantines, not just kiddie soccer ones? How many truck drivers do you think cross in and out of CA every single day? And people want to talk about a 1,000 families (if that) from CA traveling for youth sports like it is somehow the difference maker to ending this pandemic? CA truck stops along I10 have see more out of state truckers in a month than Reach 11 will see in a year and I'm sure you've seen all the precautions they're taking to prevent the spread of COVID. That is just one of many truck routes into the State.
I hear you when you say it has to be realistic and attainable. Why is it not? There is a whole industry out there because CA already has greater restrictions on the number of axles, etc. I see huge opportunity here for the industry to expand increasing employment opportunity, not only in CA but in bordering States, consisting of CA truckers at the borders dropping off loads leaving CA and taking over loads entering CA where the delivery of those goods that are perishable, cannot wait, or even where the shipper or end consumer doesn't want to wait for a quarantine period. Is there an economic impact, yes, but what is compared to dragging this nonsense we're going through along endlessly? As it is right now, to my knowledge, truckers are only asked if they have any symptoms and if they say they're not, they are allowed to proceed.
(BTW, I miss reading your boys game prediction/analysis). Imagine the shitstorm governor will receive if he puts soccer in the moderate tier and his daughter gets to play club soccer before high school football is allowed.
