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Podcast: Cato Event Podcast
Episode: COVID and the Constitution: Jacobson, Lochner, Mandates, and Lockdowns
Description: In 1905, the Supreme Court rendered two landmark decisions on the scope of individual liberty: Jacobson v. Massachusetts and Lochner v. New York. Jacobson’s broad deference to public health authority lived side by side with Lochner’s broader conception of economic liberty. While the restrictive precedent, Jacobson, now governs all pandemic response, Lochner is no longer available as a check, having been thrown in the dustbin of legal history. Judges follow a variant of Jacobson that’s far removed from the actual decision to resolve disputes over religi...