Michael Ejercito wrote:powers
http://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2022/07/18/conservative-blocs-unleash-wave-of-litigation-to-curb-public-health-powers
Conservative blocs unleash wave of litigation to curb public health
(left)Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (right) has sued the CDC over its air
travel mask mandate, while Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt
districtshas sued and sent cease and desist letters to dozens of school
(left)over mask mandates.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (right) has sued the CDC over its air
travel mask mandate, while Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt
districtshas sued and sent cease and desist letters to dozens of school
Court.over mask mandates.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
By Lauren Weber, Anna Maria Barry-Jester
July 18, 2022
SHARE
Tweet
Through a wave of pandemic-related litigation, a trio of small but
mighty conservative legal blocs has rolled back public health authority
at the local, state and federal levels, recasting America's future
battles against infectious diseases.
Galvanized by what they've characterized as an overreach of
COVID-related health orders issued amid the pandemic, lawyers from the
three overlapping spheres — conservative and libertarian think tanks,
Republican state attorneys general, and religious liberty groups — are
aggressively taking on public health mandates and the government
agencies charged with protecting community health.
"I don't think these cases have ever been about public health," said
Daniel Suhr, managing attorney for the Liberty Justice Center, a
Chicago-based libertarian litigation group. "That's the arena where
these decisions are being made, but it's the fundamental constitutional
principles that underlie it that are an issue."
Through lawsuits filed around the country, or by simply wielding the
threat of legal action, these loosely affiliated groups have targeted
individual counties and states and, in some cases, set broader legal
precedent.
In Wisconsin, a conservative legal center won a case before the state
Supreme Court stripping local health departments of the power to close
schools to stem the spread of disease.
In Missouri, the Republican state attorney general waged a campaign
against school mask mandates. Most of the dozens of cases he filed were
dismissed but nonetheless had a chilling effect on school policies.
In California, a lawsuit brought by religious groups challenging a
health order that limited the size of both secular and nonsecular
in-home gatherings as COVID-19 surged made it to the U.S. Supreme
issuedThere, the conservative majority, bolstered by three staunchly
conservative justices appointed by former President Donald Trump,
worship.an emergency injunction finding the order violated the freedom to
successor,
Other cases have chipped away at the power of federal and state
authorities to mandate COVID vaccines for certain categories of
employees, or thwarted a governor's ability to declare emergencies.
Although the three blocs are distinct, they share ties with the
Federalist Society, a conservative legal juggernaut. They also share
connections with the State Policy Network, an umbrella organization for
state-based conservative and libertarian think tanks and legal centers,
and the SPN-fostered American Juris Link, described by president and
founder Carrie Ann Donnell as "SPN for lawyers." In the COVID era, the
blocs have supported one another in numerous legal challenges by filing
amicus briefs, sharing resources and occasionally teaming up.
Their legal efforts have gained traction with a federal judiciary
transformed by Republican congressional leaders, who strategically
stonewalled judicial appointments in the final years of Democratic
President Barack Obama's second term. That put his Republican
theTrump, in position to fill hundreds of judicial vacancies, including
friendly tothree Supreme Court openings, with candidates decidedly more
tanks.the small-government philosophy long espoused by conservative think
diseases,
"You have civil servants up against a machine that has a singular focus
and that is incredibly challenging to deal with," said Adriane
Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs for the National
Association of County and City Health Officials.
All told, the COVID-era litigation has altered not just the government
response to this pandemic. Public health experts say it has endangered
the fundamental tools that public health workers have utilized for
decades to protect community health: mandatory vaccinations for public
school children against devastating diseases like measles and polio,
local officials' ability to issue health orders in an emergency, basic
investigative tactics used to monitor the spread of infectious
rapidly."and the use of quarantines to stem that spread.
Just as concerning, said multiple public health experts interviewed, is
how the upended legal landscape will impact the nation's emergency
response in future pandemics.
"This will come back to haunt America," said Lawrence Gostin, faculty
director of Georgetown University's O'Neill Institute for National and
Global Health Law. "We will rue the day where we have other public
health emergencies, and we're simply unable to act decisively and
scenes
<b>'Legal Version' of Navy SEAL Team 6</b>
The entities pressing the public health litigation predate the pandemic
and come to the issue motivated by different dynamics. But they have
found common interest following the sweeping steps public health
officials took to stem the spread of a deadly and uncharted virus.
The State Policy Network affiliates have long operated behind the
foundpromoting a conservative agenda in state legislatures. A KHN analysis
identified at least 22 of these organizations that act in the legal
arena. At least 15 have filed pandemic-related litigation, contributed
amicus briefs, or sent letters threatening legal action.
Typically staffed by just a handful of lawyers, the organizations tend
to focus on influencing policy at the state and county levels. At the
core of their arguments is the notion that public health agencies have
taken on regulatory authority that should be reserved for Congress,
state legislatures and local elected bodies.
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which calls itself the "legal
version" of the Navy SEAL Team 6, has filed a flurry of COVID-related
lawsuits. Among its victories is a state Supreme Court ruling that
therapeutics.Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' declaration of multiple states of emergency
for the same event — in this case, the pandemic — was unlawful. It also
used the threat of litigation to get a Midwest health care system to
stop considering race as a factor in how it allocates COVID
Orleans
The Kansas Justice Institute, whose website indicates it is staffed by
one lawyer, persuaded a county-level health officer in that state to
amend limitations on the size of religious gatherings and stopped a
school district from issuing quarantines after sending letters laying
out its legal objections.
Suhr, of the Liberty Justice Center, noted one of his group's cases
underpinned the U.S. Supreme Court's decision crimping the ability of
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to mandate
large-business owners to require COVID vaccinations or regular testing
for employees. The group teamed with the legal arm of Louisiana's
Pelican Institute for Public Policy on behalf of a grocery store owner
who did not want to mandate vaccines for his employees.
Republican attorneys general, meanwhile, have found in COVID-related
mandates an issue that resonates viscerally with many red-state voters.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry joined a suit against New
andover mask mandates, taking credit when the mandate was lifted. Florida
Attorney General Ashley Moody sued the Biden administration over strict
limits on cruise ships issued by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, arguing the CDC had no authority to issue such an order,
wasclaimed victory after the federal government let the order expire.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined with the Texas Public Policy
Foundation to sue the CDC over its air travel mask mandate. The case
setput on hold after a Florida federal district judge in April invalidated
the federal government's transportation mask mandates in a case brought
by the Health Freedom Defense Fund, a group focused on "bodily
autonomy." The Biden administration is fighting that ruling.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has sued and sent cease and
desist letters to dozens of school districts over mask mandates, and
libertiesup a tips email address where parents could report schools that imposed
such mandates. The majority of his suits have been dismissed, but
Schmitt has claimed victory, telling KHN "almost all of those school
districts dropped their mask mandates." This year, legislators from his
own political party grew so tired of Schmitt's lawsuits that they
stripped $500,000 from his budget.
"Our efforts have been focused solely on preserving individual
theand clawing power away from health bureaucrats and placing back into
questions.hands of individuals the power to make their own choices," Schmitt, who
is running for U.S. Senate, said in a written response to KHN
Court"I'm simply doing the job I was elected to do on behalf of all six
million Missourians."
Numerous Republican attorneys generals teamed up and won a Supreme
leadingdecision staying the OSHA vaccine mandate for large employers, building
on the legal arguments brought by Liberty Justice Center and others.
That decision was cited in the recent Supreme Court case rolling back
the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate the carbon
emissions that cause climate change.
<b>A 'Shared Ecosystem'</b>
Religious liberty groups were drawn into the fray when states early in
the pandemic issued broad restrictions on recreational, social and
religious gatherings, sometimes limiting attendance at worship services
while keeping open hardware and liquor stores. Although their legal
efforts were unsuccessful in the first months of the pandemic, they
gained traction after Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett, a stalwart
conservative, was confirmed as a U.S. Supreme Court justice in October
2020, following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a steadfast
liberal.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, rewrote an executive order after
receiving a letter from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a
Becket'sreligious litigation group, announcing that Catholic and Lutheran
churches would be opening with or without permission. In November 2020,
the Supreme Court's newly constituted majority prevented New York from
enacting some COVID restrictions through a shadow court docket.
"Courts started saying, 'Show me the proof,'" said Mark Rienzi,
COVID-relatedpresident and CEO. "And when you start saying that 'casinos, good;
churches, bad; Wall Street good; synagogue, bad,' those things at some
point require some explanation."
In February 2021, Barrett joined other conservative justices in ruling
against California in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom,
ending state and local bans on indoor worship services and leaving the
state on the hook for $1.6 million in attorney's fees to the
conservative Thomas More Society. That April, the U.S. Supreme Court
struck down California and Santa Clara County rules limiting gatherings
in private homes that prevented people from participating in at-home
Bible study. Plaintiffs' lawyers arguing that case had clerked for
Barrett and Justice Clarence Thomas.
American Juris Link, meanwhile, helped build out a list of
operate incases for lawyers to reference and connected lawyers working on similar
cases, Donnell said.
Peter Bisbee, head of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a
political fundraising machine, sits on American Juris Link's board;
Donnell said the two talk regularly. Bisbee said the groups have no
formal connection but share a common cause of shrinking the "expansive
regulatory administrative state."
Liberty Justice Center's Suhr said litigation groups like his
fora "shared ecosystem" to curtail government overreach. "I have not been
invited to any sort of standing weekly conference call where a bunch of
right-wing lawyers get on the call and talk about how they're going to
bring down the public health infrastructure of America," he said.
"That's not how this works."
Still, he said, everyone knows everyone else, either through previous
jobs or from working on similar cases. Suhr was once policy director
theformer Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, as well as deputy
director of the student division of the Federalist Society.
<b>'It's Not About Public Health'</b>
No equivalent progressive state litigation network exists to defend the
authority housed in government agencies, said Edward Fallone, an
associate professor at Marquette University Law School and expert in
constitutional law.
The difference, he said, is funding: Private donors, corporate
interests, and foundations with conservative objectives have the deep
pockets and motivation to build coalitions that can strategically chip
away at government oversight.
On the other side, he said, is often a county attorney with limited
resources.
"It's almost as if government authority is not getting defended, and
it's almost a one-sided argument," he said. "It's not about public
health, it's about weakening the ability of government to regulate
business in general."
Public health is largely a local and state endeavor. And even before
departmentspandemic, many health departments had lost staff amid decades of
underfunding. Faced with draining pandemic workloads and legislation
from conservative forces aimed at stripping agencies' powers, health
officials often find it difficult to know how they can legally respond
to public health threats.
And in states with conservative attorneys general, it can be even more
complicated. In Missouri, a circuit court judge ruled last year that
local public health officials did not have the authority to issue COVID
orders, describing them as the "unfettered opinion of an unelected
official."
Following the ruling, Schmitt declined the state health department's
request for an appeal and sent letters to schools and health
thedeclaring mask mandates and quarantine orders issued on the sole
authority of local health departments or schools "null and void."
"Not being able to work with the schools to quarantine students — that
really inhibited our ability to do public health," said Andrew Warlen,
director of Missouri's Platte County Health Department, which serves
requiresuburbs of Kansas City. "It's one of the biggest tools we have to be
able to contain disease."
The legal threats have fundamentally changed the calculus for what
powers to use when, said Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of the de
Beaumont Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to improving community
health. "Choosing not to use a policy today may mean you can use it a
year from now. But if you test the courts now, then you may lose an
authority you can't get back," he said.
By no means have the blocs won all their challenges. The Supreme Court
recently declined to hear a Becket lawsuit on behalf of employees
challenging a vaccine mandate for health care workers in New York state
that provides no exemption for religious beliefs. For now, the legal
principles that for nearly 120 years have allowed governments to
vaccinations in schools and other settings with only limited exemptions
remain intact.
Several lawyers associated with these conservative groups told KHN they
did not think their work would have a negative effect on public health.
"I honestly think the best way for them to preserve the ability to
protect the public health is to do it well, and to respect people's
rights while you do it," said Becket's Rienzi.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, decried the wave
of litigation in what he called a "right-wing laboratory." He said he
has not lost a single case where he was tasked with defending public
health powers, which he believes are entirely legal and necessary to
keep people alive. "You destroy government, and you destroy our
emergency response powers and police powers — good luck. There will be
no one to protect you."
The only *healthy* way to stop the pandemic, thereby saving lives, in
the U.S. & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like
http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
http://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2022/07/18/conservative-blocs-unleash-wave-of-litigation-to-curb-public-health-powers
Conservative blocs unleash wave of litigation to curb public health powers >Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (right) has sued the CDC over its air >travel mask mandate, while Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (left)
has sued and sent cease and desist letters to dozens of school districts
over mask mandates.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (right) has sued the CDC over its air >travel mask mandate, while Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (left)
has sued and sent cease and desist letters to dozens of school districts
over mask mandates.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
By Lauren Weber, Anna Maria Barry-Jester
July 18, 2022
SHARE
Tweet
Through a wave of pandemic-related litigation, a trio of small but
mighty conservative legal blocs has rolled back public health authority
at the local, state and federal levels, recasting America's future
battles against infectious diseases.
Galvanized by what they've characterized as an overreach of
COVID-related health orders issued amid the pandemic, lawyers from the
three overlapping spheres — conservative and libertarian think tanks, >Republican state attorneys general, and religious liberty groups — are >aggressively taking on public health mandates and the government
agencies charged with protecting community health.
"I don't think these cases have ever been about public health," said
Daniel Suhr, managing attorney for the Liberty Justice Center, a >Chicago-based libertarian litigation group. "That's the arena where
these decisions are being made, but it's the fundamental constitutional >principles that underlie it that are an issue."
Through lawsuits filed around the country, or by simply wielding the
threat of legal action, these loosely affiliated groups have targeted >individual counties and states and, in some cases, set broader legal >precedent.
In Wisconsin, a conservative legal center won a case before the state
Supreme Court stripping local health departments of the power to close >schools to stem the spread of disease.
In Missouri, the Republican state attorney general waged a campaign
against school mask mandates. Most of the dozens of cases he filed were >dismissed but nonetheless had a chilling effect on school policies.
In California, a lawsuit brought by religious groups challenging a
health order that limited the size of both secular and nonsecular
in-home gatherings as COVID-19 surged made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. >There, the conservative majority, bolstered by three staunchly
conservative justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, issued
an emergency injunction finding the order violated the freedom to worship.
Other cases have chipped away at the power of federal and state
authorities to mandate COVID vaccines for certain categories of
employees, or thwarted a governor's ability to declare emergencies.
Although the three blocs are distinct, they share ties with the
Federalist Society, a conservative legal juggernaut. They also share >connections with the State Policy Network, an umbrella organization for >state-based conservative and libertarian think tanks and legal centers,
and the SPN-fostered American Juris Link, described by president and
founder Carrie Ann Donnell as "SPN for lawyers." In the COVID era, the
blocs have supported one another in numerous legal challenges by filing >amicus briefs, sharing resources and occasionally teaming up.
Their legal efforts have gained traction with a federal judiciary
transformed by Republican congressional leaders, who strategically >stonewalled judicial appointments in the final years of Democratic
President Barack Obama's second term. That put his Republican successor, >Trump, in position to fill hundreds of judicial vacancies, including the >three Supreme Court openings, with candidates decidedly more friendly to
the small-government philosophy long espoused by conservative think tanks.
"You have civil servants up against a machine that has a singular focus
and that is incredibly challenging to deal with," said Adriane
Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs for the National >Association of County and City Health Officials.
All told, the COVID-era litigation has altered not just the government >response to this pandemic. Public health experts say it has endangered
the fundamental tools that public health workers have utilized for
decades to protect community health: mandatory vaccinations for public
school children against devastating diseases like measles and polio,
local officials' ability to issue health orders in an emergency, basic >investigative tactics used to monitor the spread of infectious diseases,
and the use of quarantines to stem that spread.
Just as concerning, said multiple public health experts interviewed, is
how the upended legal landscape will impact the nation's emergency
response in future pandemics.
"This will come back to haunt America," said Lawrence Gostin, faculty >director of Georgetown University's O'Neill Institute for National and
Global Health Law. "We will rue the day where we have other public
health emergencies, and we're simply unable to act decisively and rapidly."
<b>'Legal Version' of Navy SEAL Team 6</b>
The entities pressing the public health litigation predate the pandemic
and come to the issue motivated by different dynamics. But they have
found common interest following the sweeping steps public health
officials took to stem the spread of a deadly and uncharted virus.
The State Policy Network affiliates have long operated behind the scenes >promoting a conservative agenda in state legislatures. A KHN analysis >identified at least 22 of these organizations that act in the legal
arena. At least 15 have filed pandemic-related litigation, contributed
amicus briefs, or sent letters threatening legal action.
Typically staffed by just a handful of lawyers, the organizations tend
to focus on influencing policy at the state and county levels. At the
core of their arguments is the notion that public health agencies have
taken on regulatory authority that should be reserved for Congress,
state legislatures and local elected bodies.
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which calls itself the "legal
version" of the Navy SEAL Team 6, has filed a flurry of COVID-related >lawsuits. Among its victories is a state Supreme Court ruling that found >Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' declaration of multiple states of emergency
for the same event — in this case, the pandemic — was unlawful. It also
used the threat of litigation to get a Midwest health care system to
stop considering race as a factor in how it allocates COVID therapeutics.
The Kansas Justice Institute, whose website indicates it is staffed by
one lawyer, persuaded a county-level health officer in that state to
amend limitations on the size of religious gatherings and stopped a
school district from issuing quarantines after sending letters laying
out its legal objections.
Suhr, of the Liberty Justice Center, noted one of his group's cases >underpinned the U.S. Supreme Court's decision crimping the ability of
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to mandate
large-business owners to require COVID vaccinations or regular testing
for employees. The group teamed with the legal arm of Louisiana's
Pelican Institute for Public Policy on behalf of a grocery store owner
who did not want to mandate vaccines for his employees.
Republican attorneys general, meanwhile, have found in COVID-related
mandates an issue that resonates viscerally with many red-state voters. >Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry joined a suit against New Orleans
over mask mandates, taking credit when the mandate was lifted. Florida >Attorney General Ashley Moody sued the Biden administration over strict >limits on cruise ships issued by the Centers for Disease Control and >Prevention, arguing the CDC had no authority to issue such an order, and >claimed victory after the federal government let the order expire.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined with the Texas Public Policy >Foundation to sue the CDC over its air travel mask mandate. The case was
put on hold after a Florida federal district judge in April invalidated
the federal government's transportation mask mandates in a case brought
by the Health Freedom Defense Fund, a group focused on "bodily
autonomy." The Biden administration is fighting that ruling.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has sued and sent cease and
desist letters to dozens of school districts over mask mandates, and set
up a tips email address where parents could report schools that imposed
such mandates. The majority of his suits have been dismissed, but
Schmitt has claimed victory, telling KHN "almost all of those school >districts dropped their mask mandates." This year, legislators from his
own political party grew so tired of Schmitt's lawsuits that they
stripped $500,000 from his budget.
"Our efforts have been focused solely on preserving individual liberties
and clawing power away from health bureaucrats and placing back into the >hands of individuals the power to make their own choices," Schmitt, who
is running for U.S. Senate, said in a written response to KHN questions.
"I'm simply doing the job I was elected to do on behalf of all six
million Missourians."
Numerous Republican attorneys generals teamed up and won a Supreme Court >decision staying the OSHA vaccine mandate for large employers, building
on the legal arguments brought by Liberty Justice Center and others.
That decision was cited in the recent Supreme Court case rolling back
the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate the carbon >emissions that cause climate change.
<b>A 'Shared Ecosystem'</b>
Religious liberty groups were drawn into the fray when states early in
the pandemic issued broad restrictions on recreational, social and
religious gatherings, sometimes limiting attendance at worship services
while keeping open hardware and liquor stores. Although their legal
efforts were unsuccessful in the first months of the pandemic, they
gained traction after Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett, a stalwart >conservative, was confirmed as a U.S. Supreme Court justice in October
2020, following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a steadfast >liberal.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, rewrote an executive order after >receiving a letter from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a leading >religious litigation group, announcing that Catholic and Lutheran
churches would be opening with or without permission. In November 2020,
the Supreme Court's newly constituted majority prevented New York from >enacting some COVID restrictions through a shadow court docket.
"Courts started saying, 'Show me the proof,'" said Mark Rienzi, Becket's >president and CEO. "And when you start saying that 'casinos, good;
churches, bad; Wall Street good; synagogue, bad,' those things at some
point require some explanation."
In February 2021, Barrett joined other conservative justices in ruling >against California in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom,
ending state and local bans on indoor worship services and leaving the
state on the hook for $1.6 million in attorney's fees to the
conservative Thomas More Society. That April, the U.S. Supreme Court
struck down California and Santa Clara County rules limiting gatherings
in private homes that prevented people from participating in at-home
Bible study. Plaintiffs' lawyers arguing that case had clerked for
Barrett and Justice Clarence Thomas.
American Juris Link, meanwhile, helped build out a list of COVID-related >cases for lawyers to reference and connected lawyers working on similar >cases, Donnell said.
Peter Bisbee, head of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a >political fundraising machine, sits on American Juris Link's board;
Donnell said the two talk regularly. Bisbee said the groups have no
formal connection but share a common cause of shrinking the "expansive >regulatory administrative state."
Liberty Justice Center's Suhr said litigation groups like his operate in
a "shared ecosystem" to curtail government overreach. "I have not been >invited to any sort of standing weekly conference call where a bunch of >right-wing lawyers get on the call and talk about how they're going to
bring down the public health infrastructure of America," he said.
"That's not how this works."
Still, he said, everyone knows everyone else, either through previous
jobs or from working on similar cases. Suhr was once policy director for >former Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, as well as deputy
director of the student division of the Federalist Society.
<b>'It's Not About Public Health'</b>
No equivalent progressive state litigation network exists to defend the >authority housed in government agencies, said Edward Fallone, an
associate professor at Marquette University Law School and expert in >constitutional law.
The difference, he said, is funding: Private donors, corporate
interests, and foundations with conservative objectives have the deep
pockets and motivation to build coalitions that can strategically chip
away at government oversight.
On the other side, he said, is often a county attorney with limited >resources.
"It's almost as if government authority is not getting defended, and
it's almost a one-sided argument," he said. "It's not about public
health, it's about weakening the ability of government to regulate
business in general."
Public health is largely a local and state endeavor. And even before the >pandemic, many health departments had lost staff amid decades of >underfunding. Faced with draining pandemic workloads and legislation
from conservative forces aimed at stripping agencies' powers, health >officials often find it difficult to know how they can legally respond
to public health threats.
And in states with conservative attorneys general, it can be even more >complicated. In Missouri, a circuit court judge ruled last year that
local public health officials did not have the authority to issue COVID >orders, describing them as the "unfettered opinion of an unelected
official."
Following the ruling, Schmitt declined the state health department's
request for an appeal and sent letters to schools and health departments >declaring mask mandates and quarantine orders issued on the sole
authority of local health departments or schools "null and void."
"Not being able to work with the schools to quarantine students — that
really inhibited our ability to do public health," said Andrew Warlen, >director of Missouri's Platte County Health Department, which serves the >suburbs of Kansas City. "It's one of the biggest tools we have to be
able to contain disease."
The legal threats have fundamentally changed the calculus for what
powers to use when, said Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of the de >Beaumont Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to improving community
health. "Choosing not to use a policy today may mean you can use it a
year from now. But if you test the courts now, then you may lose an
authority you can't get back," he said.
By no means have the blocs won all their challenges. The Supreme Court >recently declined to hear a Becket lawsuit on behalf of employees
challenging a vaccine mandate for health care workers in New York state
that provides no exemption for religious beliefs. For now, the legal >principles that for nearly 120 years have allowed governments to require >vaccinations in schools and other settings with only limited exemptions >remain intact.
Several lawyers associated with these conservative groups told KHN they
did not think their work would have a negative effect on public health.
"I honestly think the best way for them to preserve the ability to
protect the public health is to do it well, and to respect people's
rights while you do it," said Becket's Rienzi.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, decried the wave
of litigation in what he called a "right-wing laboratory." He said he
has not lost a single case where he was tasked with defending public
health powers, which he believes are entirely legal and necessary to
keep people alive. "You destroy government, and you destroy our
emergency response powers and police powers — good luck. There will be
no one to protect you."
HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
Michael Ejercito wrote:
http://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2022/07/18/conservative-blocs-unleash-wave-of-litigation-to-curb-public-health-powers
powers
Conservative blocs unleash wave of litigation to curb public health
(left)Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (right) has sued the CDC over its air
travel mask mandate, while Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt
districtshas sued and sent cease and desist letters to dozens of school
(left)over mask mandates.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (right) has sued the CDC over its air
travel mask mandate, while Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt
districtshas sued and sent cease and desist letters to dozens of school
Court.over mask mandates.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
By Lauren Weber, Anna Maria Barry-Jester
July 18, 2022
SHARE
Tweet
Through a wave of pandemic-related litigation, a trio of small but
mighty conservative legal blocs has rolled back public health authority
at the local, state and federal levels, recasting America's future
battles against infectious diseases.
Galvanized by what they've characterized as an overreach of
COVID-related health orders issued amid the pandemic, lawyers from the
three overlapping spheres — conservative and libertarian think tanks,
Republican state attorneys general, and religious liberty groups — are
aggressively taking on public health mandates and the government
agencies charged with protecting community health.
"I don't think these cases have ever been about public health," said
Daniel Suhr, managing attorney for the Liberty Justice Center, a
Chicago-based libertarian litigation group. "That's the arena where
these decisions are being made, but it's the fundamental constitutional
principles that underlie it that are an issue."
Through lawsuits filed around the country, or by simply wielding the
threat of legal action, these loosely affiliated groups have targeted
individual counties and states and, in some cases, set broader legal
precedent.
In Wisconsin, a conservative legal center won a case before the state
Supreme Court stripping local health departments of the power to close
schools to stem the spread of disease.
In Missouri, the Republican state attorney general waged a campaign
against school mask mandates. Most of the dozens of cases he filed were
dismissed but nonetheless had a chilling effect on school policies.
In California, a lawsuit brought by religious groups challenging a
health order that limited the size of both secular and nonsecular
in-home gatherings as COVID-19 surged made it to the U.S. Supreme
issuedThere, the conservative majority, bolstered by three staunchly
conservative justices appointed by former President Donald Trump,
worship.an emergency injunction finding the order violated the freedom to
successor,
Other cases have chipped away at the power of federal and state
authorities to mandate COVID vaccines for certain categories of
employees, or thwarted a governor's ability to declare emergencies.
Although the three blocs are distinct, they share ties with the
Federalist Society, a conservative legal juggernaut. They also share
connections with the State Policy Network, an umbrella organization for
state-based conservative and libertarian think tanks and legal centers,
and the SPN-fostered American Juris Link, described by president and
founder Carrie Ann Donnell as "SPN for lawyers." In the COVID era, the
blocs have supported one another in numerous legal challenges by filing
amicus briefs, sharing resources and occasionally teaming up.
Their legal efforts have gained traction with a federal judiciary
transformed by Republican congressional leaders, who strategically
stonewalled judicial appointments in the final years of Democratic
President Barack Obama's second term. That put his Republican
theTrump, in position to fill hundreds of judicial vacancies, including
friendly tothree Supreme Court openings, with candidates decidedly more
tanks.the small-government philosophy long espoused by conservative think
diseases,
"You have civil servants up against a machine that has a singular focus
and that is incredibly challenging to deal with," said Adriane
Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs for the National
Association of County and City Health Officials.
All told, the COVID-era litigation has altered not just the government
response to this pandemic. Public health experts say it has endangered
the fundamental tools that public health workers have utilized for
decades to protect community health: mandatory vaccinations for public
school children against devastating diseases like measles and polio,
local officials' ability to issue health orders in an emergency, basic
investigative tactics used to monitor the spread of infectious
rapidly."and the use of quarantines to stem that spread.
Just as concerning, said multiple public health experts interviewed, is
how the upended legal landscape will impact the nation's emergency
response in future pandemics.
"This will come back to haunt America," said Lawrence Gostin, faculty
director of Georgetown University's O'Neill Institute for National and
Global Health Law. "We will rue the day where we have other public
health emergencies, and we're simply unable to act decisively and
scenes
<b>'Legal Version' of Navy SEAL Team 6</b>
The entities pressing the public health litigation predate the pandemic
and come to the issue motivated by different dynamics. But they have
found common interest following the sweeping steps public health
officials took to stem the spread of a deadly and uncharted virus.
The State Policy Network affiliates have long operated behind the
foundpromoting a conservative agenda in state legislatures. A KHN analysis
identified at least 22 of these organizations that act in the legal
arena. At least 15 have filed pandemic-related litigation, contributed
amicus briefs, or sent letters threatening legal action.
Typically staffed by just a handful of lawyers, the organizations tend
to focus on influencing policy at the state and county levels. At the
core of their arguments is the notion that public health agencies have
taken on regulatory authority that should be reserved for Congress,
state legislatures and local elected bodies.
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which calls itself the "legal
version" of the Navy SEAL Team 6, has filed a flurry of COVID-related
lawsuits. Among its victories is a state Supreme Court ruling that
therapeutics.Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' declaration of multiple states of emergency
for the same event — in this case, the pandemic — was unlawful. It also
used the threat of litigation to get a Midwest health care system to
stop considering race as a factor in how it allocates COVID
Orleans
The Kansas Justice Institute, whose website indicates it is staffed by
one lawyer, persuaded a county-level health officer in that state to
amend limitations on the size of religious gatherings and stopped a
school district from issuing quarantines after sending letters laying
out its legal objections.
Suhr, of the Liberty Justice Center, noted one of his group's cases
underpinned the U.S. Supreme Court's decision crimping the ability of
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to mandate
large-business owners to require COVID vaccinations or regular testing
for employees. The group teamed with the legal arm of Louisiana's
Pelican Institute for Public Policy on behalf of a grocery store owner
who did not want to mandate vaccines for his employees.
Republican attorneys general, meanwhile, have found in COVID-related
mandates an issue that resonates viscerally with many red-state voters.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry joined a suit against New
andover mask mandates, taking credit when the mandate was lifted. Florida
Attorney General Ashley Moody sued the Biden administration over strict
limits on cruise ships issued by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, arguing the CDC had no authority to issue such an order,
wasclaimed victory after the federal government let the order expire.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined with the Texas Public Policy
Foundation to sue the CDC over its air travel mask mandate. The case
setput on hold after a Florida federal district judge in April invalidated
the federal government's transportation mask mandates in a case brought
by the Health Freedom Defense Fund, a group focused on "bodily
autonomy." The Biden administration is fighting that ruling.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has sued and sent cease and
desist letters to dozens of school districts over mask mandates, and
libertiesup a tips email address where parents could report schools that imposed
such mandates. The majority of his suits have been dismissed, but
Schmitt has claimed victory, telling KHN "almost all of those school
districts dropped their mask mandates." This year, legislators from his
own political party grew so tired of Schmitt's lawsuits that they
stripped $500,000 from his budget.
"Our efforts have been focused solely on preserving individual
theand clawing power away from health bureaucrats and placing back into
questions.hands of individuals the power to make their own choices," Schmitt, who
is running for U.S. Senate, said in a written response to KHN
Court"I'm simply doing the job I was elected to do on behalf of all six
million Missourians."
Numerous Republican attorneys generals teamed up and won a Supreme
leadingdecision staying the OSHA vaccine mandate for large employers, building
on the legal arguments brought by Liberty Justice Center and others.
That decision was cited in the recent Supreme Court case rolling back
the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate the carbon
emissions that cause climate change.
<b>A 'Shared Ecosystem'</b>
Religious liberty groups were drawn into the fray when states early in
the pandemic issued broad restrictions on recreational, social and
religious gatherings, sometimes limiting attendance at worship services
while keeping open hardware and liquor stores. Although their legal
efforts were unsuccessful in the first months of the pandemic, they
gained traction after Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett, a stalwart
conservative, was confirmed as a U.S. Supreme Court justice in October
2020, following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a steadfast
liberal.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, rewrote an executive order after
receiving a letter from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a
Becket'sreligious litigation group, announcing that Catholic and Lutheran
churches would be opening with or without permission. In November 2020,
the Supreme Court's newly constituted majority prevented New York from
enacting some COVID restrictions through a shadow court docket.
"Courts started saying, 'Show me the proof,'" said Mark Rienzi,
COVID-relatedpresident and CEO. "And when you start saying that 'casinos, good;
churches, bad; Wall Street good; synagogue, bad,' those things at some
point require some explanation."
In February 2021, Barrett joined other conservative justices in ruling
against California in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom,
ending state and local bans on indoor worship services and leaving the
state on the hook for $1.6 million in attorney's fees to the
conservative Thomas More Society. That April, the U.S. Supreme Court
struck down California and Santa Clara County rules limiting gatherings
in private homes that prevented people from participating in at-home
Bible study. Plaintiffs' lawyers arguing that case had clerked for
Barrett and Justice Clarence Thomas.
American Juris Link, meanwhile, helped build out a list of
operate incases for lawyers to reference and connected lawyers working on similar
cases, Donnell said.
Peter Bisbee, head of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a
political fundraising machine, sits on American Juris Link's board;
Donnell said the two talk regularly. Bisbee said the groups have no
formal connection but share a common cause of shrinking the "expansive
regulatory administrative state."
Liberty Justice Center's Suhr said litigation groups like his
fora "shared ecosystem" to curtail government overreach. "I have not been
invited to any sort of standing weekly conference call where a bunch of
right-wing lawyers get on the call and talk about how they're going to
bring down the public health infrastructure of America," he said.
"That's not how this works."
Still, he said, everyone knows everyone else, either through previous
jobs or from working on similar cases. Suhr was once policy director
theformer Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, as well as deputy
director of the student division of the Federalist Society.
<b>'It's Not About Public Health'</b>
No equivalent progressive state litigation network exists to defend the
authority housed in government agencies, said Edward Fallone, an
associate professor at Marquette University Law School and expert in
constitutional law.
The difference, he said, is funding: Private donors, corporate
interests, and foundations with conservative objectives have the deep
pockets and motivation to build coalitions that can strategically chip
away at government oversight.
On the other side, he said, is often a county attorney with limited
resources.
"It's almost as if government authority is not getting defended, and
it's almost a one-sided argument," he said. "It's not about public
health, it's about weakening the ability of government to regulate
business in general."
Public health is largely a local and state endeavor. And even before
departmentspandemic, many health departments had lost staff amid decades of
underfunding. Faced with draining pandemic workloads and legislation >>from conservative forces aimed at stripping agencies' powers, health
officials often find it difficult to know how they can legally respond
to public health threats.
And in states with conservative attorneys general, it can be even more
complicated. In Missouri, a circuit court judge ruled last year that
local public health officials did not have the authority to issue COVID
orders, describing them as the "unfettered opinion of an unelected
official."
Following the ruling, Schmitt declined the state health department's
request for an appeal and sent letters to schools and health
thedeclaring mask mandates and quarantine orders issued on the sole
authority of local health departments or schools "null and void."
"Not being able to work with the schools to quarantine students — that
really inhibited our ability to do public health," said Andrew Warlen,
director of Missouri's Platte County Health Department, which serves
requiresuburbs of Kansas City. "It's one of the biggest tools we have to be
able to contain disease."
The legal threats have fundamentally changed the calculus for what
powers to use when, said Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of the de
Beaumont Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to improving community
health. "Choosing not to use a policy today may mean you can use it a
year from now. But if you test the courts now, then you may lose an
authority you can't get back," he said.
By no means have the blocs won all their challenges. The Supreme Court
recently declined to hear a Becket lawsuit on behalf of employees
challenging a vaccine mandate for health care workers in New York state
that provides no exemption for religious beliefs. For now, the legal
principles that for nearly 120 years have allowed governments to
vaccinations in schools and other settings with only limited exemptions
remain intact.
Several lawyers associated with these conservative groups told KHN they
did not think their work would have a negative effect on public health.
"I honestly think the best way for them to preserve the ability to
protect the public health is to do it well, and to respect people's
rights while you do it," said Becket's Rienzi.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, decried the wave
of litigation in what he called a "right-wing laboratory." He said he
has not lost a single case where he was tasked with defending public
health powers, which he believes are entirely legal and necessary to
keep people alive. "You destroy government, and you destroy our
emergency response powers and police powers — good luck. There will be
no one to protect you."
The only *healthy* way to stop the pandemic, thereby saving lives, in
the U.S. & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like
http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
I am wonderfully hungry!
HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
Michael Ejercito wrote:
https://archive.is/PQKqa#selection-711.0-1979.63
Covid backlash hobbles public health and future pandemic response
Lawsuits and legislation have stripped public health officials of their
powers in three years
By Lauren Weber and Joel Achenbach
March 8, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Protesters descend on the Ohio Statehouse for an anti-mask rally in
Columbus on July 18, 2020. (Jeff Dean/AFP/Getty Images)
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
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When the next pandemic sweeps the United States, health officials in
Ohio won’t be able to shutter businesses or schools, even if they become >>> epicenters of outbreaks. Nor will they be empowered to force Ohioans who >>> have been exposed to go into quarantine. State officials in North Dakota >>> are barred from directing people to wear masks to slow the spread. Not
even the president can force federal agencies to issue vaccination or
testing mandates to thwart its march.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
Conservative and libertarian forces have defanged much of the nation’s
public health system through legislation and litigation as the world
staggers into the fourth year of covid.
Why covid-19 vaccination gaps persist
4:11
Hispanic adults are among the most eager to get vaccinated, researchers
say, but they still have one of the lowest covid-19 vaccination rates in >>> the country. (Video: Joy Yi, Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)
At least 30 states, nearly all led by Republican legislatures, have
passed laws since 2020 that limit public health authority, according to
a Washington Post analysis of laws collected by Kaiser Health News and
the Associated Press as well as the Association of State and Territorial >>> Health Officials and the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple >>> University.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
Health officials and governors in more than half the country are now
restricted from issuing mask mandates, ordering school closures and
imposing other protective measures or must seek permission from their
state legislatures before renewing emergency orders, the analysis showed. >>> The movement to curtail public health powers successfully tapped into a
populist rejection of pandemic measures following widespread anger and
confusion over the government response to covid. Grass-roots-backed
candidates ran for county commissions and local health boards on the
platform of dismantling health departments’ authority. Republican
legislators and attorneys general, religious liberty groups and the
legal arms of libertarian think tanks filed lawsuits and wrote new laws
modeled after legislation promoted by groups such as the American
Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, corporate-backed influence >>> in statehouses across the country.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
The Alabama legislature barred businesses from requiring proof of
coronavirus vaccination. In Tennessee, officials cannot close churches
during a state of emergency. Florida made it illegal for schools to
require coronavirus vaccinations.
[Cut short: One million covid deaths]
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
The result, public health experts warn, is a battered patchwork system
that makes it harder for leaders to protect the country from infectious
diseases that cross red and blue state borders.
“One day we’re going to have a really bad global crisis and a pandemic
far worse than covid, and we’ll look to the government to protect us,
but it’ll have its hands behind its back and a blindfold on,” said
Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute
for National and Global Health Law. “We’ll die with our rights on — we
want liberty but we don’t want protection.”
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
Those seeking to dismantle public health powers say they’re fighting
back against an intrusion on their rights by unelected bureaucrats who
overstepped amid a national crisis.
“We don’t want to concentrate power in a single set of hands,” said Rick >>> Esenberg, head of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a
libertarian law firm that won a state Supreme Court case barring health
officials from closing schools. “It’s a usurpation of the legislative role.”
Many conservatives said they did not believe the public health orders
were effective in saving lives, despite evidence to the contrary. One
study, for example, found that coronavirus vaccines prevented 3.2
million additional deaths in the United States.
Leaders in the public health establishment readily admit that many of
their problems have been self-inflicted. Among the mistakes: an early
failure by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to roll out a
diagnostic test for covid; an about-face on whether people should wear
masks to limit the spread of the virus; and confusing messages on when
to exit isolation after an infection. The duration of school closures
remains a source of recriminations.
“We deserve to have that backlash to some extent,” said Deborah Birx,
the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force under
President Donald Trump, citing early CDC stumbles.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
When Kelley Vollmar, health department director in Jefferson County,
Mo., issued a mask mandate, community members chattered online about
finding her address and chasing her out of the county. (Neeta Satam for
The Washington Post)
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
More than 1,000 legal decisions have been made at the local, state and
federal level regarding public health protections since March 2020,
according to research published in January in the American Journal of
Public Health. While only a quarter succeeded in weakening public health >>> powers, the rulings have substantially chipped away at the legal
standing of health agencies and officials to protect the public, said
Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern University’s Center for Health
Policy and Law, who co-wrote the paper. “The courts are leaving us
vulnerable,” Parmet said.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
The lawsuits found a conservative Supreme Court and federal judiciary
transformed by Trump and ready to strip the federal government’s public
health powers to issue mandates or other disease-control measures, said
Jennifer Piatt, a deputy director with the Network for Public Health Law. >>> A single federal judge in Florida was able to defeat the CDC’s travel
mask mandate. Republican attorneys general knocked out a federal
vaccinate-or-test mandate issued by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
[Three days in the deadliest month of the covid pandemic]
These “big court wins” ensure that the next time there is a pandemic,
the country will not be able to respond as it had in 2020 with
government overreach, said Peter Bisbee, executive director of the
Republican Attorneys General Association.
“People are going to push for more freedom in every aspect of their
lives, but specifically when it comes to the ability to make decisions
regarding health and medicine,” Bisbee said. “So many people lost faith
with the government messaging on public health crises.”
The consequences are already playing out in Columbus, Ohio, where a
child with measles was able to wander around a mall before showing
symptoms in November, potentially spreading the highly contagious
disease. The state legislature in 2021 had stripped the city health
commissioner’s ability to order someone suspected of having an
infectious disease to quarantine.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
Mysheika Roberts, Columbus health commissioner, explains her decision to >>> seek a public health emergency order for the Ohio city to help combat
the spread of the coronavirus on March 13, 2020. (Andrew Welsh-Huggins/AP) >>> Columbus Health Commissioner Mysheika Roberts bemoans the basic public
health functions she has lost control of — such as the ability to shut
down a restaurant with a hepatitis A outbreak as she had done before
covid. “All the other workers exposed preparing food for others to eat — >>> they could continue to go to work and shed hepatitis A” under the new
legislation, she said.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
In Wisconsin, the constant threat of lawsuits by the Wisconsin Institute >>> for Law & Liberty has made officials wary of acting quickly to address
any public health threat, said Kirsten Johnson, the former health
commissioner of Milwaukee who is now the state’s health secretary.
Before the pandemic, Johnson said, she had threatened to shut down a
prominent local golf tournament after E. coli was found in the well
water, which forced the organizers to bring in bottled water. Now, she
said, she’s afraid to issue such a threat, for fear of legal retribution. >>> “At the beginning of the pandemic, it didn’t even occur to me that
public health authority was an issue,” Johnson said. “Fast forward a
year later, I had great hesitation of what was appropriate.”
The next time a pandemic hits, many public health officials will be
forced to go to state legislatures and to Congress to ask for explicit
authorization to act — a delay that could cost lives, said Edward
Fallone, a constitutional law expert at Marquette University Law School. >>> “Masking requirements, vaccine requirements, school closures are
completely off the table without new legislation,” Fallone said.
The push to dismantle the nation’s public health system was ramping up
in the summer of 2020 — months into a widespread shutdown of
restaurants, workplaces and schools — when the Heritage Foundation, a
conservative think tank, hosted a virtual forum on how state
legislatures could curtail governors’ shutdown powers.
On tap were representatives from the American Legislative Exchange
Council (ALEC) as well as a think tank and legal support group.
The message was clear: The government reaction to covid is a threat to
individual liberties that must be stopped.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
“You have to narrowly define the authorities of the governor and make it >>> very clear to society and to the courts that certain things are to be
protected, such as individual and constitutional liberties,” said
Jonathon Hauenschild, who had worked on model legislation for ALEC,
according to a video recording of the July 2020 forum.
[The delta variant is ravaging this Missouri city. Many residents are
still wary of vaccines.]
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
Many states drew inspiration from the council’s model legislation.
In Missouri, John Wiemann, a former speaker pro tempore in the state
House of Representatives, said he used the council’s model legislation
when he co-sponsored a 2021 law that curtailed local public health
leaders’ ability to extend emergency orders without approval from
elected officials.
“It provided protections for the consumers and businesses with regards
to public health agencies out of control, unchecked with any kind of
supervision from elected officials,” he said.
Kelley Vollmar, health department director in Jefferson County, Mo.,
said the new law whittled her ability to fight covid and future
infectious diseases. In addition, a circuit court ruling stripped health >>> departments of their power to issue orders such as mandating masks and
closing schools without the support of an elected health board or county >>> commission. The state’s Republican attorney general refused to appeal
the ruling on behalf of the Missouri health department.
Backlash against her attempts to issue a mask mandate was so severe that >>> the mandate lasted just four months. The attorney who was supposed to
defend her department quit. Community members chattered online about
finding Vollmar’s address and chasing her out of the county.
Now, a gun store owner who gained local infamy for banning anyone from
wearing masks in his store says he is campaigning for an elected spot on >>> the health board so he can fire Vollmar and gut the department.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
Vollmar shows printouts of threats she and her staff received on social
media during the pandemic. (Neeta Satam for The Washington Post)
Ian McFarland vowed on Facebook to give the health department “hell” and >>> used profane language to threaten workers with sexual assault in
December 2021, according to a screenshot Vollmar shared with The Post.
McFarland, in an October 2020 post she also shared, had suggested
holding a Second Amendment rally at a coronavirus testing site where
Vollmar’s staff would be working.
McFarland told The Post he was just joking around and was angry because
he believes the health department acted beyond its authority and
destroyed people’s lives and livelihoods.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
“You can’t deny what they did was inappropriate and wrong if you are a
normal person who looked at life and liberty in America,” said
McFarland, a self-described constitutionalist who has vowed to turn away >>> government money if he wins.
He cited the $2 million in additional revenue he said his gun store
recorded as evidence his views are widely shared by the community, which >>> he said came to support him after his mask ban.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
Amid the county’s contentious race for health board, Vollmar said a
quarter of her 81-person staff is on the verge of quitting. They change
out of their uniform polos before leaving work because of the continued
barrage of harassment and threats.
Vollmar said she is dismayed by the way the narrative of the pandemic
has become distorted. The basic facts have been lost, she said; these
public health measures were stopgaps to protect people’s lives before
vaccines and treatment were available. A majority of Americans in 2021
said they supported mask mandates and social distancing in both red and
blue states, according to a Monmouth University poll.
What haunts her most, Vollmar said, is the more than 600 lives that have >>> been lost to covid in Jefferson County. That despite her best efforts,
even she could not protect her own mother from contracting the disease
that killed her in December 2020. That even if she keeps her job after
the April health board election, Americans are now at greater risk — not >>> only for covid, but for whatever comes next.
“The reality is public health has been silenced,” Vollmar said.
https://tinyurl.com/COVIDapocalypse
In the interim, the only *healthy* way to eradicate the COVID-19
virus, thereby saving lives, in the US & elsewhere is by rapidly (
http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) finding out at any given moment,
including even while on-line, who among us are unwittingly contagious
(i.e pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic) in order to
http://WDJW.great-site.net/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12) for them to
call their doctor and self-quarantine per their doctor in hopes of
stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the best while
preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations
and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, Lambda, Mu &
Delta lineage mutations combining via slip-RNA-replication to form
hybrids like http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current
COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
I am wonderfully hungry!
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