Are there any limitations on what governors can order once they declare a State of Emergency?
If you look at the recent history of the NJ governor’s orders, ISTM that he can pretty much order whatever he wants, from banning any sort of private activity to waiving private parties’ contractual obligations to other private parties, as long as it has some indirect connection to the SOE that he declared.
And in any event, what’s the (constitutional - not legal) basis for this incredible level of power?
I assume people can go to court and challenge any order and see if it passes muster with a court.
mangosteen asked a similar question in a thread in GD: Six (Impossible) Conditions Before People in California Are Free. I replied at post 55, citing the provisions of the California Government Code, enacted by the Legislature. I’m not planning on doing that for 50 states in turn, but you could look there as a starting point.
The basic point is that the state Legislatures have broad authorities under the state Constitutions to enact laws for the public welfare, often summarised as the “police power”. Those laws in turn delegate powers to the Governor to deal with public emergencies.
Those laws have to be consistent with the state and federal constitutions, but those constitutional provisions in turn will be interpreted in light of the particular situation facing the government: how to balance the individual freedoms protected by the Constitution, with the power of the government to use its constitutional authority to enact laws to protect the public, individually and as a group.