Fighting COVID-19 in the United States with Federalism and Other Constitutional and Statutory Authority

Beverly A Cigler

Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 2021, vol. 51, issue 4, 673-692

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic challenges a workable American federalism. The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reserves plenary responsibilities to states for promoting health and well-being; but states and their local governments suffer from a significant lack of resources and interjurisdictional competition during major emergencies. In this article, I argue that a president has significant constitutional and statutory authority for pandemic preparedness and, by law, is responsible for leading a coordinated national response necessary to a pandemic. The article outlines the constitutional and statutory authorities available to President Trump and assesses how he used those powers to address the pandemic. It is argued that early, decisive national coordinative systems for containing and mitigating the virus; testing, tracing, contacting, and isolation protocols; data collection standardization; procurement and distribution of supplies; and planning vaccine eligibility and distribution could have reduced the state and local government disadvantages early in the pandemic, saving lives and boosting the economy.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/publius/pjab021 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:publus:v:51:y:2021:i:4:p:673-692.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Publius: The Journal of Federalism is currently edited by Paul Nolette and Philip Rocco

More articles in Publius: The Journal of Federalism from CSF Associates Inc. Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().