On Wednesday, Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp issued an executive order that banned cities and counties from ordering people to wear masks in public places.
Kemp voided orders on Wednesday that at least 15 local governments across the state had adopted even though Kemp had earlier said cities and counties had no power to order masks during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Republican governor has instead been trying to encourage voluntary mask wearing, including telling fans that reduced infections from mask-wearing would make college football season possible.
Kemp’s move is likely to infuriate local officials in communities that had acted, including Atlanta, Augusta, Savannah, Rome and the governor’s hometown of Athens-Clarke County. Overall, mask orders by Wednesday were covering 1.4 million of Georgia’s more than 10 million residents.
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson was the first local official to defy Kemp and order masks, and had said police would start writing $500 citations to businesses that didn’t enforce the law.
Governor Kemp Does Not Give a Damn About Us
“Not only are we fighting coronavirus on one hand, it appears as if we’re fighting our state on the other hand,” says Savannah, Georgia, Mayor Van Johnson in response to Gov. Brian Kemp banning cities from mandating masks in public.
“It made absolutely no sense to me.” pic.twitter.com/JZyAhdgKbs
— CNN (@CNN) July 16, 2020
Mayor Bottoms says Gov. Kemp is trying to block her from talking to the press
In addition to being sued over a mask mandate and voluntary advisory guidelines on COVID-19, @GovKemp has asked for an emergency injunction to “restrain” me from issuing press statements and speaking to the press. Far more have sacrificed too much more for me to be silent. pic.twitter.com/gWlnZlCtoR
— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) July 19, 2020
3104 Georgians have died and I and my family are amongst the 106k who have tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, I have been sued by @GovKemp for a mask mandate. A better use of tax payer money would be to expand testing and contact tracing. #ATLStrong pic.twitter.com/z4hpTrCS1B
— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) July 16, 2020
Georgia in the Red Zone
Time reports Georgia is in the Red Zone.
On July 10, Bottoms said in a statement that she rolled back reopening measures “[b]ased upon the surge of COVID-19 cases and other data trends, adding that “Georgia reopened in a reckless manner and the people of our city and state are suffering the consequences.”
Georgia was one of the first states to reopen parts of its economy at the end of April and it has seen a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases over the past few weeks. On Thursday, Georgia was included in a list of “red zone” states compiled by the White House Coronavirus Task Force, meaning Georgia has more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people last week, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. On Friday, Georgia reported 3,908 new cases of the virus and 28 confirmed deaths, according to the state’s department of health. As of Friday afternoon ET, Georgia had at least 135,192 confirmed cases in total, according to a tracker from Johns Hopkins University.
Why Raging in the South
This is going to upset the hyper-partisans …
CV19 is spread best indoors. A lot (not all) of can be explained by …
* CV19 raged northern states when it was cold and everyone was inside.
*CV19 is now raging where it is scorching hot and everyone is inside. https://t.co/4GZrHnoPs8
— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) July 19, 2020
Georgia New Covid Cases
Lawsuit Debate
Cathy Cox, the dean of Mercer University School of Law, says she believes Kemp could win because of the structure of local government in Georgia. Municipalities have broad emergency powers under Georgia law, Cox explains, but that same law says that cities cannot use their powers to do anything that is “inconsistent” with an order issued by the governor. “Cities don’t have a lot of wiggle room to do things beyond what the legislature says they can do,” she says.
Clark Cunningham, a professor of law at Georgia State University College of Law, explains to TIME, and state governments typically win. However, Cunningham explains that Kemp’s order is built upon his emergency powers, which give him authority to “take action to protect the health, safety, and welfare of Georgia’s residents and visitors to ensure COVID-19 remains controlled throughout this State.”
Kemp’s suit is unique, Cunningham says, because Bottoms could feasibly argue that the order preventing her from mandating face masks is contrary to Kemp’s declaration of a public health emergency. Therefore, in Cunningham’s opinion, to win, Kemp should have to argue that “preventing the mayor from requiring the wearing of masks ensures that COVID-19 remains controlled.” If the court agrees with this principle, Kemp may well lose the case, Cunningham says.
Kemp’s suit also asks the court to place a gag order on Bottoms that would prevent her from telling the press that “she has the authority to impose more or less restrictive measures that are ordered by Gov. Kemp related to the Public Health Emergency.” A judge might be hesitant to place such a gag order because it could violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, Cunningham says.
Legal Debate vs Battle for Public Opinion
Courts may rule anything including invalidating the entire order, parts of the order, or sending it back to be better worded.
The battle over public opinion is a different matter.
Kemp Follows Trump’s Playbook
- Georgia’s Covid Improvement was a Big Lie by the Governor
- Trump Downplays Outbreak as Sniffles and Burning Embers
Kemp is following the Trump playbook hook, line and sinker.
That is a losing policy, no matter what the courts rule.
Mish
The box even says they don’t work.
“Governor Kemp Does Not Give a Damn About Us”
Who does? Supposedly some 50 million people have filed for unemployment as a result of the state shutdowns. State governors have deliberately destroyed their livelyhood. We have no idea yet as to the what the extent of damage will be from doing this to the American people.
Masks
Karl Denninger: “Note that every one of those health-care workers had masks on when anywhere near someone who might be contagious. It did nothing and they got hammered anyway. These are trained professionals. If it didn’t work for them it’s factually going to be useless for you, which incidentally is exactly what 14 Random Controlled Trials say about masks and viruses — they don’t work.”
And you would advocate that all businesses should have remained open and conducted business as usual? Is that really what you are advocating? If not, please enlighten us.
116,000 people died of the flu in 1957. Population adjusted, that would be around 200,000, now. The government didn’t shut down so-called non essential businesses.
Maybe you think you don’t need a job, but most of the 10’s of millions thrown out of work, do. Their livelihood depends on it.
With businesses shut down, as they have reopened, Covid cases picked up again.
The shutdowns didn’t work. Experts even said that is what would happen. The virus didn’t go away, just because numerous businesses were shut down. Even China keeps having outbreaks.
As for business as usual, staying open and requiring frequent hand washing, disinfecting, etc., would not be business as usual, but there wouldn’t have been mass layoffs and a trashed economy, which itself is a serious health hazard.
Grocery stores have been open this whole time. Walmart has been open this whole time.
“The virus didn’t go away, just because numerous businesses were shut down. Even China keeps having outbreaks.”
“Having outbreaks” is not an either-or thing. China still having occasional, intermittent, localized outbreaks of a few tens of cases and a dead or two, is very different from tens of thousands of new cases, and a thousand deaths spread across the whole country every single day.
In China, people can have reasonable certainty that unless they are told that they under lockdown, they won’t face contagion by going to work, to shops, nor anything else. Ditto in South Korea, Vietnam, New Zeeland, the non-Sweden Nordics, and some others. That’s an infinitely better position to be in, than one where no matter where you are, every single person you run into may realistically be a spreader of a pretty nasty virus.
You are living in fantasy land. The shutdown worked extremely well in New York driving down the fatality rate from over 700 a day to the low double digits – I believe even reaching single digits in the past week. The daily death toll in New York would likely have been in the thousands without the shutdowns. What do you think that would have done for businesses in New York? I would hazard a guess that the impact on jobs would have been even greater without the shutdown. I agree the virus is not going away any time soon but it can be managed as per the story in the northeast states. The fact that We have some clown governors Choosing to ignore effective safety measures accounts for the surging number of cases and deaths In their states. The bottom line is that this Covid epidemic has been grossly mismanaged by Trump.
I used to have some sympathy for the Trump true believers, but it is really becoming increasingly clear that it is a cult. The anti-mask stuff is absolute insanity, and I’ve stopped caring about their concerns and issues as a result.
Someone who has no regard for the right of vulnerable people not to be intentionally exposed to a deadly pathogen has no right demanding empathy from others.
Mayor Bottoms is not to be trifled with. Kemp will rue the day he picked a fight with the mayor of the city that pays his entire state’s bills. He also will be haunted by his actions as the virus ravages the people of Georgia and the hospital system collapses — both he and Trump will have an awful reckoning on their respective election days.
Even elderly Republican voters are realizing they don’t matter to the Trumpites and their deaths are “collateral damage” for the Trumpites power play. And now the “pro life” party that screeches about “murder” when someone dislodges a fertilized egg in a uterus wants to send kids into school to get mass infected and suffer long term health problems that are already documented but still not fully known.
Hillary was wrong when she called them deplorable. They’re utterly depraved. Anyone still supporting this government is flat-out depraved.
almost impossible for UNELECTED ‘science’ know it all’s – we call them racist hater group or DEMOCRATS – to put JEANNIE back in bottle now that entire world is SCARED of covid-19
and those who disagree are labelled ‘bad’ – must be ole white guys ‘again’
Not sure if people are following what’s been happening in Portland, but one day Kemp is going to call on our newly created Gestapo units to arrest Mayor Bottoms, and that’s pretty much it for this country.
In absolute terms, you cannot judge if for a given circumstance wearing masks would or has saved lives. It isn’t only that the evidence is sometimes contradictory, but that in reality you would have to have two exact mirror populations with one wearing masks and one not, and afterwards (which already defeats the object) take count.
You could say it is common sense to wear a mask instead, but being dictated to implies that is not an option either.
Oh well, maybe we will get more studies on the worth or not worth of masks into the bargain.
Common sense is to wear one for now though where possible, where it seems wise to.
Kemp is angling to be Vice President, but Pence has quietly done a pretty decent job in my opinion. He doesn’t defy the President openly, because we all know that it will only set Trump off, but he supports many of the governors.
I mean you expected worse from someone who had bungled a public health crisis before.
Define decent. Terrible. Awful.
Pence is a sycophant. End of story.
Kemp has to be plummeting in the polls over this, as Bottoms rises. If Pence is dropped off the ticket, he’s more apt to be replaced by Nikki Haley or Tim Scott. Kemp’s next position is more apt to be dog catcher.
If by “decent”, you mean he his nose shoved up Fat Donnie™’s ass.
Well, the, yes.
What is up with these republican guys they think they can outsmart a pandemic and put profits first or what?
Confused. Is this backwards?
Shouldn’t it be “disagrees”
“ Therefore, in Cunningham’s opinion, to win, Kemp should have to argue that “preventing the mayor from requiring the wearing of masks ensures that COVID-19 remains controlled.” If the court agrees with this principle, Kemp may well lose the case, Cunningham says.”
To me it reads :
If the court agrees with the principle of Kemp having to prove “preventing the mayor from requiring the wearing of masks ensures that COVID-19 remains controlled” then Kemp might lose.
?
Yup…it backwards.
Cunningham’s premise is that Kemp could win.
So, to win, Kemp should do [A]
And, if the court agrees with the principles of [A] then ” Kemp may well lose the case, Cunningham says”.
Clearly, my confusion is the minority.
I will let it go and worry about the more important things in life; like remembering to order a coffee (been forever) before my next batch of Starbucks points expire again.
No wonder this country’s Covid numbers are the worst in the world.
Funny how Republicans are only for free speech when it’s them speaking. This idiot Governor has turned Mayor Keisha Bottoms into a national superstar. HE OPENLY AGREES WITH HER THAT MASKS SAVE LIVES… and then he effectively tries to kill people. Wow. She just wiped the floor with him. If he wins in court then she wins and if she wins in court then she wins. Kemp is outmatched by Bottoms the way Trump was outmatched by Wallace.
Kemp is owned by Trump. Trump gets in hot water for violating the mask law at the Atlanta airport, so he gets Kemp to nullify the law. This is the only explanation that makes any sense to me for this madness.
air force one does not fly into atl, it flies into dobbins afb in the suburb of mayretta
Interesting. I’ll have to look closer at what Mayor Bottoms’ claim was. Did he meet people at the airport?
People laughed when Gray Davis got recalled in California and asked why a state would recall its governor. Some states probably wish they had such a provision now.
Two recall petitions failed against Newsom in the past. A third is now circulating.