Follow Our Orders to Endanger Your Citizens

 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton—who allegedly has his own problems following the law—is suing Travis County, and the state capitol it encompasses, Austin. Those jurisdictions are refusing to to comply with an order from their marshmallow-eating governor to rescind all pandemic restrictions, including mask ordinances.

This is just so messed up. First, public health experts uniformly agree that the Texas governor's move is reckless. Travis County and Austin officials are just doing what they think is right to protect the health and safety of their citizens. Paxton is basically suing to force those officials to endanger their citizens.

Second, once upon a time, Republicans like Paxton (and Abbott) were all about devolving power and championing states' rights. This is the exact same thing, only one level down. Apparently it's only important to devolve power until you're the one wielding the power and the subordinate entities make decisions you don't like.

Third, this whole idea of state laws overruling local ones needs some examination.  The same thing happened in Arizona last spring when the governor outlawed local pandemic restrictions before cases skyrocketed and he came to his senses. 

The general idea is to prevent development of a patchwork of regulations that makes it hard for people to know how to comply. That makes sense. You don't want, say, one set of traffic laws in Phoenix and another set when you cross the border from there to Scottsdale. 

That would be a nuisance. There is little harm in preventing such a nuisance because people don't typically make traffic laws for ideological reasons or because of pressure from monied interests. Also state laws usually try to set the most protective standard.

In the case of the pandemic it's a life and death issue. Officials have done things for ideological reasons and/or because of pressure from monied interests. And it  doesn't harm anyone in College Station if Austin maintains its mask mandate. 

In the case of public health, the law should favor the most protective measures even if it means deviating from less protective state measures. It should not be possible for a governor to prohibit a county or municipality from taking reasonable steps to protect the health and safety of their citizens in an emergency—any more than a governor should be able to force a municipality to set 100 mph speed limits on its residential streets.

News this morning is that a Texas judge may agree. She has declined to grant the state a preliminary injunction.  

Image by Corona-zona


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