Tenth Amendment applies to this issue. MA state constitution empowers the Commissioner of Health to take custody of a person who is a threat to public safety.
[From article]
Another possible constitutional objection to such measures, as Josh Blackman points out, is preemption because of a conflict with federal policy. The issue is not that state quarantine rules are tougher than the CDC suggests – federal law explicitly allows states to be tougher in this regard. Rather, it is that the quarantine of health care workers returning from West Africa conflicts with the Obama Administration’s policy of not discouraging them from going to the hot zone, as evidenced by the decision to not bar air traffic from the area.
As it happens, the Supreme Court’s discussions of the permissibility of quarantines has been mostly in the preemption contexts, going back to the landmark dormant commerce clause case, Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824. (A quarantine is by definition a prophylactic measure that applies to those who are not necessarily sick of infected.) The Court has ruled strongly against any kind of implied preemption for quarantines. Rather, it has said that unless the federal government adopts quarantine laws or regulations inconsistent with those of the states, “the laws of the state on the subject are [presumptively] valid.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/10/28/ebola-quarantines-and-state-powers/
Ebola quarantines and state powers
By Eugene Kontorovich
October 28 at 7:23 AM
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