Some students and school staff in two of Texas’ biggest counties are required to wear masks to school on Monday despite the newest roadblock by the state’s Supreme Court.
Officials in Dallas and Bexar counties declared on Sunday that school mask mandates were still in effect even after the state Supreme Court temporarily blocked the measures at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) request earlier that day.
“We are going to have the mask mandate tomorrow,” Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said, per CNN. “We’re going to be benevolent; we’re going to be nice, but we’re going to be firm and we’re going to enforce it.”
However, local news outlet Fox 4 reports that other school districts in Dallas County will not have mask mandates.
San Antonio City Attorney Andy Segovia in Bexar County said that the mandate “remains in effect” and that the county’s response to the Supreme Court’s decision “continues to emphasize that the Governor cannot use his emergency powers to suspend laws that provide local entities the needed flexibility to act in an emergency.”
The Texas Supreme Court, which consists of all GOP judges, granted stay orders on the mask mandates in the two counties on Sunday. However, the court allowed a temporary injunction hearing in Dallas County scheduled for August 24 to move forward.
Abbott has been fighting tooth and nail to ban local authorities from implementing mask mandates even as COVID-19 cases explode throughout his state due to the delta variant – a fact the governor clearly acknowledged when he sought out-of-state medical assistance to help overwhelmed Texas hospitals handle the caseloads.
Abbott tried to defend his ban on Sunday after the Supreme Court issued the orders, tweeting that the ban “doesn’t prohibit using masks. Anyone who wants to wear a mask can do so, including in schools.”
Is that “stay” as in stay stupid?
This is an endless fight between the politically expedient and trying to make the best decision for the most people in a complex situation. Only one side in this fight actually gives a shit about people’s safety.
We can’t run away and hide from the virus - but I will never understand why so many people would not want to take the simple basic steps required to improve everyone’s chances. It is like common sense and normal good will toward our neighbors is being flayed and tortured to death right in front of my eyes.
I came across this opinion piece this morning discussing how to craft a mask mandate that may be able to withstand an ultimate SCOTUS review in this highly political environment we now find ourselves operating within where logic and best medical practice is downplayed.
And another piece on the role of experts and why competence that ought to be so important has become something that is “religiously” ignored:
This is the endgame of 40+ years of Republican misinformation designed to charge up their uninformed base of voters by appealing to what their base is not getting, etc., that has only been amplified by FOX and other right-wing noise disseminators. Before it was “politics”, now, it’s a matter of actual life and death.
So defending peoples “right” to sickness is the hill that Abbott and DeathSantis want to die on?
I know there is a whole lot of stupid in the R party, but in the long run, I think this is going to bite them.
Yes, followed by stay dead