Ross: Power to reopen country lies with the people, not the President

From New York to California, governors are now studying ways to safely release us all from isolation and reopen the country.

In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy tried to imagine how that might look.

“Something like the following: a bar or a restaurant, someone’s maybe taking your temperature, or you’ve got gloved and masked servers, X feet between one table and the next,” he proposed.

I can’t think of a more memorable first date.

But the President – who has organized his own re-opening commission – insisted that he alone has the authority to overrule New Jersey or any other state.

“The authority is total, and that’s the way it’s gotta be — it’s total,” he claimed during Monday’s coronavirus task force briefing.

Based on how emergency declarations have been used in the past, he does have a lot of power. But not the ultimate power.

Consider — why are so many of us staying home right now? Because of the President’s total authority? No! Because we’re afraid of dying!

Whatever the Constitution says, the ultimate power to reopen the country belongs to me and you.

And you and I are not going to re-open the country until we can enter a school, restaurant, a factory, an office, a church, or a stadium, and feel perfectly fine about mingling with 50, 500, or 50,000 untested strangers.

And if the answer is a resounding “no,” not even an all-powerful president can overrule that.

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