Which is literally the court's excuse for the "rulemaking" ruling - that they should have gone through the 12mo+ tradition of regulation-development that legislatively-empowered agencies utilize. Which isn't how public health powers usually work - the public health powers are delineated in empowering statutes and regulations ahead of time, and allow leewey to do things like "order quarantine" within broadly-worded statutes+regs.
Which is why this was phenomenally stupid. Besides ignoring context, this was a ruling that basically boiled down to "agencies cannot exercise the powers developed in the scope of their founding statutes and regulations unless those powers have been very explicitly laid out ahead of time, otherwise, they need to go to rulemaking for every application of their powers." It effectively guts the ability of agencies to do things they are supposed to do, have been doing, and prevents them from acting in time-frames <12months.
That is still the Executive. Those are all executive branch officials. The Executive branch is headed by a singular Executive official (Governor, President), but all of its officials form the Executive branch and power.
> making their exercise of power one delineated by the legislature
That's where the difference of opinion lies.
The whole point of having an executive is for a single person to act alone and decisively, especially in times of crisis. In the midst of an emergency is not the time for legislative subcommittees to endlessly debate.
The US president has the power to unilaterally order a nuclear strike on any point on the planet at any time they choose, regardless of how anyone in the other branches feel about it at the time. So 'limited,' maybe, but also able to end life on Earth as we know it on a whim.
That's an aside, however. I'm talking about the general concept of an executive office, not specifically the US president. And sure, there can be limits, but the whole point of an executive is to avoid endless deliberation in the appropriate situations. Perfect example: Congress had the constitutional power to manage tariffs, and they surrendered that power to the president willingly because they weren't able to be decisive enough with it.
Within the confines of the powers granted to the executive by law. The legislative branch grants such powers to the executive to act. Where th executive goes beyond that, the judicial branch rules against the executive branch. Checks and balances.
> In the midst of an emergency is not the time for legislative subcommittees to endlessly debate.
Man I hope Trump doesn't read this and get ideas. You are essentially saying that the executive branch should be given dictatorial powers now. Do away with checks and balances? Is that what you really want? Historically emergencies and crises have been used to justify tyranny and it's scary to see how the fearful yearn for it.
