logo

Does the President have the legal authority to require all Americans to wear face masks in public?

Tuesday, June 30, 2020
By Eric Smith
NO

While several Supreme Court cases have affirmed that governments have the authority to implement emergency public health measures, including requiring people to wear a mask in public, this authority largely belongs to states under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution. The President and Congress together can pass laws to influence states to implement certain policies through funding measures or interstate commerce regulation, but the enforcement power for most laws regarding public health and safety still lies largely with the states themselves.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
facebook
twitter
email
email