California’s governor can commandeer sheriffs
Overview In an emergency, California’s governor can commandeer the county sheriffs and make them part of the state’s emergency response. The COVID-19 pandemic showed that local law enforcement can impede the state’s emergency response, as when some county sheriffs refused to enforce Governor Gavin Newsom’s emergency orders. Governor Newsom could have used constitutional tools to compel sheriffs to enforce his orders: by assuming constitutional power to supervise sheriffs or through judicial orders to compel compliance. Future governors could consider those paths in California’s next emergency. Analysis Patchwork enforcement of gubernatorial emergency orders is problematic To combat the nascent COVID-19 contagion,...