(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Amy Coney Barrett found common ground Monday over shared concern that the nation’s highest court is increasingly viewed in ideological terms.
Barrett, in one of her first public speeches as a justice, told an audience Sunday in Kentucky that “this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” according to the Louisville Courier Journal.
Breyer, asked about those comments in an interview with the Washington Post on Monday, said that he agrees “with I think the approach is that she’s taking there.”
“As I’ve said, it takes some years and then you gradually pick up the mores of the institution. And the mores of the institution — you’re a judge, and you better be there for everybody,” said Breyer, the court’s oldest member and most senior liberal. “Even if a Democrat or Republican appointed you – you’re there as a judge.”
Barrett appeared to echo that sentiment in her speech, telling the audience that differences among “judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties.”
Her message may have been undercut, however, by the fact that the event was hosted by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell inside an academic center named in his honor. Several progressive legal groups and independent judicial watchdogs criticized the optics.
“If Justice Barrett wants the Supreme Court not to be seen as partisan, she should avoid being hosted by a center named after the most partisan person in America,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix The Court, a nonpartisan advocacy group. “There’s value in members of the high court speaking to audiences outside of Washington, but that concept is corrupted when stretched to rationalize appearing at events that look and sound like political pep rallies.”
Breyer was not asked about and did not comment on the connection with McConnell. His appearance came as part of a media tour for his new book, “The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics.”
The public defense of the court as a nonpartisan institution comes at a fraught time for the justices and their credibility. The Court’s approval rating has dipped below 50% for the first time since 2017 and down 9-points from a decade high just last year, according to Gallup.
This month, the court became embroiled in a dramatic and highly divisive debate over abortion in Texas, after refusing to block an unprecedented law that effectively outlaws the procedure across the state by a narrow 5-4 vote.
Barrett voted with the majority; Breyer dissented.
“The timing wasn’t very good for my book because it’s pretty hard to believe when a case like those come along that we’re less divided than you might think,” Breyer lamented.
“A lot of people will strongly disagree with many of the opinions or dissents that you write, but still, internally, you must feel that this is not a political institution, that this is an institution that’s there for every American,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — President Joe Biden on Monday was making his first visit to the West Coast as president, with plans to survey wildfire damage and push for action on combatting climate change.
Biden planned to first stop in Boise, Idaho, to visit the National Interagency Fire Center — which coordinates the federal government’s response to wildfires — before traveling to the Sacramento, Calif., area to view the impact of the Caldor Fire and receive a briefing from local officials.
The president has used recent natural disasters to show the urgency of climate change and its deadly effects on the American people, pitching his massive spending plan as a way to rebuild infrastructure in a greener, cleaner, more resilient manner. This month, he has visited Louisiana, New Jersey and New York to see the impact of Hurricane Ida and its remnants.
The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress hope to pass two major bills by the end of the month that, together, would make hundreds of billions of dollars available for developing clean energy, rebuilding physical infrastructure to make it withstand more extreme weather events, and electrifying the federal fleet of vehicles.
The larger bill — the price tag and contents of which have been subject to Democratic infighting — would devote $135 billion to preventing wildfires, dealing with droughts, and promoting clean energy in rural communities, among other things.
After an aerial tour of the Caldor Fire’s impact on El Dorado County, Calif., Biden plans to deliver remarks on his administration’s response to recent wildfires and how his spending proposals “will strengthen our nation’s resilience to climate change and extreme weather events,” according to the White House.
He then plans to travel to Long Beach, Calif., to speak at a Monday evening campaign rally with Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat facing a recall election in which voting ends Tuesday.
“Today, the president’s showing how nature will take its course if we don’t act and we don’t start investing,” White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy said in an interview with CNN on Monday.
(NEW ORLEANS) — Tropical Storm Nicholas has set a course toward the Gulf Coast and is expected to bring drenching rains to some regions still recovering from Hurricane Ida.
The system strengthened from a tropical depression late Sunday morning in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, currently carrying maximum sustained winds up to 40 mph and moving north-northwest at 15 mph. The center of the storm is currently about 300 miles south-southeast from the mouth of the Rio Grande River.
Nicholas is expected to become better organized and strengthen as it closes in on the southern Texas coast in the next 24 to 36 hours. Landfall is expected late Monday into early Tuesday morning, but the impact will begin hours earlier.
The tropical moisture from the storm is already triggering scattered showers and thunderstorms along the western Gulf Coast Sunday afternoon. Flash flooding along the coast is possible in the next to 12 to 24 hours, and on Monday morning, the center of the storm will be off the northeast coast of Mexico.
A tropical storm warning is in effect from the Rio Grande River to Port Aransas, Texas, including cities such as Corpus Christi and South Padre Island. A tropical storm watch is in effect from Port Aransas along the Texas coast to High Island, which includes Galveston and Victoria.
Nicholas is the 14th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which is currently at its peak, with five tropical disturbances being monitored across the Atlantic basin.
The outer bands of Nicholas could potentially affect some regions along the Louisiana coast that were devastated by Hurricane Ida last month, such as New Orleans.
Flash flood watches are now in effect from Brownsville, Texas, to Lake Charles, Louisiana. A storm surge watch has been issued along parts of the Texas coastline as well, with surges between 2 and 4 feet expected.
Nicholas is expected to weaken on Tuesday but will also slow down, which could increase the risk of flash flooding. While the winds will die down, the heavy rain will continue and crawl over east Texas through the middle of the week.
The primary widespread hazard from Nicholas will be the heavy rain and flash flood threats. Rounds of heavy rain will slam much of the Texas and Louisiana coast over the next few days.
Between 6 and 10 inches of rain is forecast for Galveston, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana. The Houston metro area could see between 2 to 4 inches, which higher amounts closer to the coast. South of Lake Charles, 10 to 15 inches is possible.
(LOS ANGELES) — There are still two days to go before California’s gubernatorial recall election, but the current governor’s team and his leading opponent, Larry Elder, have each already indicated they’re ready for legal challenges.
In a sit-down interview with ABC News’ Zohreen Shah on Saturday, Elder was asked repeatedly if he would accept the results of Tuesday’s election, but he avoided answering by conveying confidence in his ability to win.
“So many people are going to vote to have [Newsom] recalled, I’m not worried about fraud,” he said.
But Elder earlier this week made unsubstantiated claims of possible fraud at a campaign event, saying the recall could see similar “shenanigans” as many Republicans claimed happened in last year’s presidential election, despite no evidence of widespread election fraud.
Elder’s campaign has an election integrity section on his website, where voters can fill out a form to report alleged incidents of voter fraud and sign a petition to investigate the results of the recall.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s campaign team said they were prepared for potential lawsuits but wouldn’t elaborate on specifics during a campaign stop Thursday.
In the interview with Shah, Elder also deflected questions about some of the controversial statements he’s made in the past, such as saying slave owners should get reparations.
“Cover what I said about the election,” he said. “The election is occurring because people are unhappy with how California is being governed the last two years.”
If he were to be elected, Elder already has his first order of business planned. “The first thing I’m going to do is repeal the requirement for state workers that they have to be tested once a week and they have to wear a mask,” he said. “I don’t think the science supports that.”
It’s the issues brought up by COVID-19 that previously plagued Newsom’s political career and now, in recent days, have bolstered it. The Public Policy Institute of California reported that 60% of respondents approve of the way Newsom has handled the pandemic in a survey released earlier this month.
Recent polling about the recall election looks promising for Newsom, as 56.2% of voters said they’ll vote to keep him, a 4% increase from last week’s reported polling average, according to FiveThirtyEight.
“Democrats didn’t even take it seriously until literally, I won’t even say a couple months ago, I’d say six or seven weeks ago,” Newsom told ABC News. “People started waking up to this reality, we’re closing that gap every single day. We’re going to pull this thing out.”
The boost comes as President Joe Biden is set to travel to California to campaign with Newsom on Monday as a final push to motivate voters.
But Newsom is facing new controversies in the final stretch. Actress Rose McGowan recently alleged Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, tried to bribe her against coming forward with her sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein. A spokesperson for Siebel Newsom told ABC News the allegation “is a complete fabrication,” adding, “It’s disappointing but not surprising to see political opponents launch these false attacks just days before the election.”
McGowan will campaign with Elder on Sunday in Los Angeles.
(NEW YORK) — Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., reiterated his call on Sunday for a strategic pause on the $3.5 trillion budget resolution, while Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., doubled down on the need to pass both the bipartisan infrastructure and budget reconciliation bills.
“The urgency — I can’t understand why we can’t take time to deliberate on this and work,” Manchin told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos.
In an interview that followed, Sanders told Stephanopoulos that he believes both bills will be passed.
“I think we’re gonna work it out, but it would really be a terrible, terrible shame for the American people if both bills went down,” Sanders said.
Manchin on Thursday wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for a “strategic pause” on the budget resolution Democrats took the first step in passing last month. Debate continues over the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, with some Democrats threatening to hold up the bipartisan infrastructure bill on the passage of the reconciliation package.
The Senate returns on Monday and the tentative deadline for Senate committees to turn in their draft legislation to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sanders, the Budget Committee chairman, is Wednesday.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court allowing an unprecedented pre-viability abortion ban to go into effect in Texas has prompted questions on the status of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that’s supposed to protect the right to abortion nationally.
To some experts, this marks the end of the line for the right to abortion to be federally protected, especially with an upcoming case soon to be heard by the court that directly challenges Roe.
“Roe v. Wade is dead in Texas, the second-most-populous state,” Elizabeth Sepper, a University of Texas at Austin School of Law professor, told ABC News, “and I think it’s really hanging by a thread for much of the rest of the nation.”
Not overturned, but some say ignored in Texas case
The Supreme Court did not remark on the constitutionality of the Texas law, but it did reject a request for an emergency injunction, citing technical grounds, in a brief so-called shadow docket, allowing the law to go into effect while it’s being legally challenged.
“So we don’t see a citation to Roe v. Wade, we don’t see a discussion of the constitutionality of banning abortion, but here we are, right?” Sepper said. “Abortion is banned in the state of Texas, and that speaks volumes beyond this mealy mouthed sentence and the one paragraph we got from the court.”
In 1973’s Roe and in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court affirmed “the constitutionally protected liberty of the woman to decide to have an abortion before the fetus attains viability and to obtain it without undo interference from the State.”
The Texas law bans physicians from providing abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy — well before viability.
“To have allowed that to happen in this procedural way,” said Kimberly Mutcherson, a co-dean and law professor at Rutgers Law School, referring to the Supreme Court, “is something that I would have thought they were at least a little bit too good for, but apparently I was wrong.”
On Thursday, the Department of Justice sued the state of Texas to block the law, with Attorney General Merrick Garland calling it “clearly unconstitutional under long-standing Supreme Court precedent.”
Ripple effect
Since the near-total ban in Texas was allowed to go into effect, Republican lawmakers in other states have said they aim to mimic the law.
Priscilla Smith, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice who argued in front of the Supreme Court in a 2000s abortion case, called the court’s action “cowardly” and “completely lawless.”
“It overturned it in effect in that it’s saying, ‘Here’s how you can get out from under Roe.’ So it’s instructing states on how to do something to make it so Roe doesn’t apply in their state,” she said.
The Texas law is different from previous bans in that it prohibits the state from enforcing the ban, instead authorizing private citizens to bring civil suits against anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion.
With that, Mutcherson said, “they created this sort of confusion and this hook that the Supreme Court was able to use.”
“This kind of tactic is going to be used throughout the country in anti-abortion states to deprive women of federal constitutional protections,” Smith said.
Upcoming case
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case this term from Mississippi, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, challenging another pre-viability ban. The state of Mississippi formally asked the court to overturn Roe as part of that case.
“The Supreme Court’s decision not to decide with regard to the Texas abortion law signals quite strongly, I think, the outcome on the Mississippi 15-week ban on abortion,” Sepper said.
Because precedent might indicate the Texas ban should have been enjoined, Sepper said, “I think that does signal really the end of Roe.”
Smith agreed: “There’s no reason to think they’re not just going to overturn the right itself.”
Since 2018, Chief Justice John Roberts has stepped in as a swing vote on abortion, including siding with the liberal-leaning justices in the latest full abortion case, although his opinion followed more procedural lines.
But the Supreme Court balance has changed since 2018 with former President Donald Trump’s appointments, who have voted more conservatively. Roberts joined Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in dissenting on the Texas law, but his vote did not make theirs the majority opinion.
“Justice Roberts is no longer the swing vote,” Smith said. “I don’t think there is a swing vote.”
Acknowledging it was “possible” one of the Trump-appointed justices could side with the liberal-leaning justices, Smith said, “There’s no indication that anybody’s going to swing.”
Sepper posited the justices could overtly overturn Roe or do it in a “sneaky, silent sort of way,” like by changing a standard that opens the door for more restrictions and bans.
Possible political repercussions
While the door has arguably been opened for state lawmakers to ban abortion, some argue they may not want to because of potential political repercussions.
A 2019 ABC News/Washington Post poll showed a majority of Americans support the right to abortion, so lawmakers could face backlash from voters if they actually ban it.
Many conservative lawmakers have introduced bills restricting abortion knowing that they would probably never go into effect because they were unconstitutional, Sepper added.
“So these legislators got credit with the anti-abortion activists for passing the laws, but they didn’t have to face the electoral consequences of having banned abortion or denied emergency abortion care,” she said. “The fact that they may soon face those political repercussions is something they’re going to have to think about.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is already facing backlash for the new law’s lack of exceptions for cases of incest or rape.
One way for voters to indicate disapproval is protesting, and while there have been some demonstrations about the Texas law, Smith said she’s surprised there aren’t more.
“And I’m not sure why they’re not, except that people are getting this idea that this is just a procedural move,” she said. “If Dobbs comes through the way the anti-abortion folks want it to, if Roe gets overturned in Dobbs, then maybe people will wake up and hit the streets. But you know, if you’re in a red state right now, you better watch out
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack is in the process of reviewing thousands of pages of documents obtained in response to requests made of federal government agencies and 35 social media and communication companies in recent weeks.
A spokesperson for the committee said that documents have come in from “nearly all Executive Branch agencies.” Last month, the committee sent records requests to eight government agencies, seeking records from the Trump White House and administration related to the riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
It was not immediately clear what documents the committee has in their possession, but sources familiar with what has been obtained so far say the records came from both social media companies and government agencies.
The panel sent requests to the National Archives — which maintains and preserves Trump White House records — the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of the Interior, the FBI and several intelligence community agencies.
The committee has not yet received documents from the National Archives, which is in the process of reviewing the request.
“The Select Committee is also aware that the National Archives has undertaken the process required by law for identifying records and notifying relevant parties,” a committee spokesperson said.
In the 12-page letter to the National Archives, the committee requested records pertaining to more than 30 White House aides, lawyers, Trump family members and outside advisers, along with West Wing communications, records and visitors logs on and around the day of the Capitol riot.
In a statement following the request, former President Donald Trump slammed the investigation as a “partisan exercise” that is “being performed at the expense of long-standing legal principles of privilege.”
“Executive privilege will be defended,” Trump said.
It’s not clear what conversations the Biden White House is engaged in related to executive privilege. Biden has said his administration wants to help the investigation, but sources say there could be reluctance within the West Wing and Department of Justice to set new precedents regarding executive privilege and what presidential records Congress can access and obtain.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden paid tribute to the victims of the Sep. 11 terror attacks Friday, commemorating their lives and the losses of their families in a somber six-and-a-half-minute video.
Biden, in prerecorded remarks to the nation on the eve of the 20th anniversary, hailed the shared sense of national purpose that Americans felt after 9/11, and called unity the “greatest strength” of the country.
“Unity is what makes us who we are, America at its best. To me that’s the central lesson of Sept. 11,” he said. “Unity doesn’t mean we have to believe the same thing. But we must have a fundamental respect and faith in each other and in this nation.”
Biden will travel to New York City Friday evening and will attend 9/11 memorials in New York City; Shanksville, Pennsylvania; and at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on Saturday.
“No matter how much times has passed, these commemorations bring everything back,” Biden said in the video, addressing the families of the victims. “Jill and I hold you close, and send you our love.”
“There are people around the world who you will never know who are suffering their own losses, who see you,” he continued. “Your courage … gives them courage that they too can get up and keep going.”
Biden said the 9/11 attacks also exposed the “darker forces of human nature,” acknowledging the wave of Islamophobia that followed the attacks as “fear and anger, resentment and violence against Muslim Americans, true and faithful followers of a peaceful religion.”
“We saw a national unity bend and we saw that unity is the one thing that must never break,” he said.
Biden recalled speaking to a family friend in the days after 9/11 on the way to a meeting with students at the University of Delaware. The friend, Davis, had lost his eldest son at the World Trade Center, and his youngest son in a boating accident three years earlier.
“He told me to tell people, ‘Don’t be afraid. Tell them don’t be afraid.’ The absolute courage it took after two unimaginable losses is extraordinary, yet the most ordinary of American things. To know that life can be unfair and uncertain … but even in the darkness, to still be the light,” Biden recalled.
He invoked his friend’s words at the end of his remarks.
“We find strength in the broken places, as [Ernest] Hemingway wrote. We find light in the darkness,” he continued. “We find purpose to repair, renew and rebuild. And as my friend told me that September, 20 years ago, we must not be afraid.”
(NEW YORK) — Taking his toughest tone yet against those Americans still unvaccinated, President Joe Biden has triggered vows of legal challenges from GOP governors representing some of the very states where he’s trying to use mandates to get more people inoculated.
At least 19 Republican governors have lashed back at Biden’s promise to use OSHA to pressure employers with more than 100 employees to mandate COVID-19 vaccines or have workers submit to weekly testing. The Republican governors called the mandate an overreach that will force Americans to choose between their job and the vaccine.
While Biden said on Friday morning, during a visit to local middle school, that all scientists would agree with his new strategy — that using protecting public health as a justification for mandates makes “considerable sense,” his taking a combative tone may come with new political and public health risks and further polarize Americans, fueling the already bitter political divide around the pandemic.
South Dakota GOP Gov. Kristi Noem, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, tweeted to Biden, “see you in court,” while Mississippi GOP Gov. Tate Reeves compared him to a “tyrant,” and South Carolina GOP Gov. Henry McMaster said he’ll “fight them to the gates of hell” to stop the move. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Biden’s approach “flat-out un-American.”
When ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott asked Biden on Friday what his message was to Republicans threatening to challenge his move in court, he responded, “Have at it.”
He continued, “Look, I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities. We’re playing for real here — this isn’t a game.”
While Biden has previously said he wouldn’t impose vaccine mandates, he said Friday that vaccine requirements are “nothing new.” However, past vaccines requirements for measles, mumps and rubella, for instance, have historically been implemented at a state and local level — and at times when the country wasn’t already so divided politically
In his address to the nation on Thursday introducing his new six-part approach, a frustrated Biden went after the unvaccinated and elected officials for standing in the way of public health measures and, he said, causing people to die.
“These pandemic politics, as I refer to it, are making people sick, causing unvaccinated people to die. We cannot allow these actions to stand in the way of the large majority of Americans who have done their part and want to get back to life as normal,” Biden said.
“My message to unvaccinated Americans is this: What more is there to wait for? What more do you need to see?” he said. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.”
He called out the governors, many of whom are now criticizing his approach, saying, “if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way.”
He added, “Let me be blunt. My plan also takes on elected officials in states that are undermining you and these life-saving actions. Right now, local school officials are trying to keep children safe in a pandemic while their governor picks a fight with them and even threatens their salaries or their jobs,” he said. He promised his administration would to pay back salaries withheld from those opposing mask bans.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked on Friday what caused Biden and the rest of the administration to change its tune on blaming the unvaccinated for the pandemic — after Psaki said in June that she didn’t want to place blame.
She said Biden on Thursday was “channeling the frustration” of millions who are vaccinated as the pandemic rages, while pointing a finger at Republicans.
“We didn’t anticipate, I will say, that when there was a vaccine approved under a Republican president, that the Republican president took, that there would be such hesitation, opposition vehement opposition in some cases from so many people of his own party in this country,” she said.
While 75% of adults have gotten a shot, per data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccinations have stalled in recent months despite widespread availability as the hospitals across the country face another surge of the virus timed with the start of a new school year.
Biden’s new approach to getting more shots into arms comes as his approval for handling the pandemic has dropped sharply from 62% in June to 52% now.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found also that vaccine hesitancy has subsided in the face of the delta surge, with the share of Americans who are disinclined to get a coronavirus shot now just half what it was last January. Among those unvaccinated adults, about 7 in 10 are skeptical of the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness, 9 in 10 see vaccination as a personal choice rather than a broader responsibility and just 16% have been encouraged by someone close to them to get a shot.
It’s unclear if Biden will break through to that group.
A White House spokesman declined to say whether public polling on why certain people remain unvaccinated informed the decision to institute these new requirements, or otherwise explain how Americans’ attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines impacted the president’s decision.
The spokesman said the decision to enact the new requirements was “not rooted in any political focus, rather on what’s going to work.”
As some GOP governors say they’re preparing lawsuits, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients in defending the mandates on Friday argued that COVID-19 is a “public health issue, not a political issue.”
“We know that vaccination requirements work,” Zients said, pointing to “significant increases in vaccination rates at companies, health care systems, universities, that implement vaccine requirements.”
As Biden did on Thursday, Zients pointed specifically to companies like Fox News — which has provided a platform for vaccine misinformation and has repeatedly railed against Biden’s COVID-19 response — but which is also participating in a version of a vaccination reporting requirement itself.
“The president’s actions will accelerate that number of companies across the board for employers over a hundred, and that includes Fox News, which already has that vaccination requirement in place to keep its own employees safe.”
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson and Sasha Peznik contributed to this report.
(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — In a victory for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, an appeals court ruled Friday to keep the state’s ban on student mask mandates in place, at least until it issues a final ruling on the legality of the ban.
The ban on mask requirements — issued by the Florida Department of Health in August after DeSantis directed it to “protect parents’ freedom to choose whether their children wear masks” — had been suspended Wednesday by a judge in Tallahassee. Judge John C. Cooper had ruled that the state could not keep punishing school districts that require masks while the appeals court works toward a final ruling.
Friday’s order overrides Cooper, giving the Florida Board of Education the green light to continue withholding the salaries of school board members in districts that require face coverings for students. The state has imposed that punishment on two districts and has announced investigations into several others.
“Just like last year in the school re-opening litigation, the First District Court of Appeal has reinstated Florida’s ability to protect the freedom for parents to make the best decisions for their children while they make their own ruling on the appeal,” Taryn Fenske, communications director for DeSantis, said in a statement to ABC News. “We look forward to winning the appeal and will continue to fight for parents’ rights.”
DeSantis tweeted, “No surprise here – the 1st DCA has restored the right of parents to make the best decisions for their children. I will continue to fight for parents’ rights.”
Alachua County, one of the districts where school board members’ salaries are being withheld for imposing a mandate, said in a statement that despite Friday’s ruling it will “continue to enforce universal masking in our schools.”
“The decision is disappointing, but we understood from the beginning that the legal battle over masks in schools would take time and not every decision would be favorable,” Alachua County Public Schools Superintendent Carlee Simon said in a statement.
“While Alachua County Public Schools is not part of this particular lawsuit, we certainly support it,” Simon continued. “We are pleased that the plaintiffs plan to continue their fight. In the meantime, our legal challenges are just beginning, and we support the other Florida districts and families who are also taking the state to court over this issue.”
At least 13 school districts, including Florida’s six largest, have implemented mask mandates.
“Upon our review of the trial court’s final judgment and the operative pleadings, we have serious doubts about standing, jurisdiction, and other threshold matters,” Friday’s order states. “These doubts significantly militate against the likelihood of the appellees’ ultimate success in this appeal.”
A lawyer representing the parents who sued the state said Friday’s decision would make students less safe.
“We are disappointed by the ruling of the 1st DCA that reinstates the stay and will be seeking pass through jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Florida since this matter involves statewide issues. With a stay in place, students, parents and teachers are back in harm’s way,” Charles Gallagher, one of the lawyers representing the group of parents who sued the state over its ban on mask mandates, wrote on Twitter.
