According to legal expert Alan Dershowitz, interstate vaccine passports here in the U.S. are going to be a very “tough sell,” as the courts will no doubt “push back” — as they rightfully should — short of congressional action, because there has already been “far too much executive authority assumed over COVID.”
“I think that’s going to be a tough sell,” Dershowitz said during his chat on Saturday’s “The Count” about recent talk of requiring proof of vaccination in order to go across state lines by either car or foot. “I don’t think the interstate commerce rights of the federal government would necessarily applied to somebody who commutes from New York to New Jersey in his own car.”
“Train, plane, bus – I think the answer to that is, ‘yes.’ Remember, you’re not asking me for my private views; you are asking me to predict what the courts will do, in fact, and I think that’s what the courts will do, in fact,” he continued.
“I think that interstate travel in a car is going to be a harder case to make, but we have to wait and see. The law is very unclear,” he added.
Dershowitz told host Carl Higbie he is writing his next book on the laws under the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve never quite had a pandemic like this,” Dershowitz went on to say. “This is different than smallpox, different than polio. It’s mutating. The vaccine is less effective in spreading the disease but quite effective in preventing illness, so it raises really core constitutional questions. I’m going to be writing a book on this subject now about the constitutional issues, and it’s very daunting. It’s not easy.”
One key point amid the COVID-19 mandates and lockdowns, Dershowitz noted, is executive overreach.
“Remember, too, the president doesn’t have the authority to do this – only Congress has the authority to do this,” Dershowitz went on to say concerning vaccine passports. “The executive branch has the authority to implement laws made by Congress.
“There’s been far too much executive authority assumed over COVID by mayors, by governors, by police chiefs, by the president, and I think we’re going to see the courts pushback on that and say, ‘if you want to take individual liberty away, you have to do it through legislation, not through executive actions,'” the legal expert said.
Dershowitz said his personal opinions and recommendations to come in his next book might even differ from what the law and the courts might decide.
“There’s a lot of inconsistency on both sides,” he explained. “We’re going to be struggling with these issues for a long time. And I have to tell you the Supreme Court rulings on the 1905 decision about smallpox doesn’t necessarily tell us how the courts are going to decide these varying issues.”
“So you’re gonna have to wait to read my book about the constitutional issues surrounding vaccination and masks. And, in the book, I’m going to suggest what I think the right approach is and also what I think the approach is that the courts will take,” Dershowitz stated.
“But, we can’t, at this point, predict with certainty how the disease will develop, what the science will tell us, and what the law will do in response,” he said.
Look, there’s no way that these vaccination passports should even exist, let alone be used to regulate travel on the interstate. That’s crossing far, far over the line. And we’ve already went over that line by a significant margin as it is.
"*" indicates required fields
