To the Editor:

Re “Governors Agree to Explore Plans to Reopen States” (front page, April 14):

It is the governors who have carried the burden of managing the global pandemic that is ravaging the country. From imposing stay-at-home orders to testing for the coronavirus after a botched rollout of test kits by the C.D.C. to procuring personal protective equipment for front-line workers, it is the governors, guided by health professionals, who have stepped up to fill the void left by President Trump in his egregious mismanagement of this public health crisis. It is to their credit that our health care system, though frighteningly overwhelmed, did not collapse.

Now the president wants to assert his “total” authority in determining when to “open up the country.” Why in the world would we trust a man who failed to act early to save lives to decide when it is safe to return to some sense of normalcy? It is no wonder that some governors are pre-empting that possibility by announcing that they will act in unison, with their neighboring states, to determine when it is prudent to take first steps in reopening.

If the president thinks he can override the determination of the states and is preparing to invoke emergency powers to force a stand, I would wager that the American people will line up behind the governors who have had their backs thus far.

Felicia Massarsky

Atlantic City, N.J.

To the Editor:

President Trump’s assertion that “when somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total” is not just a breezy overstatement of his powers; it is a prime example of constitutional illiteracy.