The statewide stay-at-home order that is in effect until April 11 would likely survive a legal challenge based on the emergency it is designed to address, former Colorado solicitor general Fred Yarger said on Thursday.

Yarger, speaking on a webinar hosted by Colorado Christian University’s conservative-leaning Centennial Institute, explained that Gov. Jared Polis relied on statutory authority and the Constitution’s delegation of powers to the states in issuing his order, and that courts are reluctant to second-guess restrictions on people’s rights to gather during emergencies.

“We’ve already abridged the rights of people to assemble for religious purposes and clearly we’re abridging the right to gather and speak,” Yarger said. However, in his opinion, “the courts are going to be okay with that for as long as the emergency is real.”

He added that there is not much case law on the subject, given that emergency declarations typically extend to natural disasters like floods and fires instead of pandemics.

In describing the different authorities vested in the state and national governments, Yarger said that only states are empowered to limit travel and impose quarantines throughout their populations. The national government through its enumerated powers can only impose limits on foreign and interstate travel. However, there is an important role that federal officials can play in a pandemic, and that is to marshal resources.

“Folks tend to think that the federal government is extremely powerful in our system, and it is. It’s wealthy. It has a lot of resources to throw around,” he said. “The big thing the federal government can do is spend money.”

In Yarger’s reading of the order, the intent is to urge voluntary compliance, rather than mobilize local law enforcement to arrest violators. In response to a question from Centennial Institute director Jeff Hunt about how an “unelected bureaucrat” in the Denver-area Tri-County Health Department could impose a local-level stay-at-home order, Yarger explained that local and state governments share powers in some policy areas. Although the governor’s order allowed localities to take additional measures, Tri-County rescinded its order on Thursday to ensure consistency across the state.

He added that he doubts the federal government will in turn produce a nationwide stay-at-home directive, noting that “it’s questionable whether they have that authority.”

Hunt closed the webinar by predicting that there will be lawsuits over what businesses are considered “essential” under the order because the government was “picking winners and losers.” Yarger in turn felt that lawmakers would have “a lot to think about when things get back to normal” about how to handle future crisis responses.