Not every order came from a governor, a mayor or a health officer.
Ports closed to cruise ships on a Coast Guard captain’s order. Airports lost their control-tower hours on the FAA’s list. Courts suspended jury trials, evictions and in-person hearings by administrative order. Licensing boards told dentists, barbers, real-estate agents and contractors what they could and could not do under their licenses. Alcohol regulators enforced capacity and hours through the liquor license, and gaming commissions closed the casinos. Utility commissions, school boards, transit authorities and prison systems each spoke to the businesses that depended on them. Tribal and territorial governments imposed curfews and weekend lockdowns that reached every business on and around their lands.
The statute names the source of an order in three words: an appropriate governmental authority. A board with statutory power over a trade is that authority for the trade it licenses. A court is that authority for the parties and the lawyers before it. A port captain, a racing commission, a utility commission, a school board and a tribal council are each that authority within their own jurisdiction. Letters that say no orders were in effect do not inventory them. Read the statute’s elements on the statute page.
Each cluster below holds two kinds of record, and the counts on every card keep them apart. A binding instrument is an order, rule, emergency amendment, license condition or administrative order with the force of law: those are the records the Library counts as orders and the record builder pleads. A context record is an announcement, a guidance document, an enforcement summary or a data release that explains what the binding instruments did and how the regulator applied them. The Library keeps context records for the reader and never pleads one as an order.