Pennsylvania Court Throws Out Governor’s School Mask Mandate; Wolf To Appeal
Darian Alexander
A Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court threw out an order that required individuals to wear masks inside public and private schools Monday, saying that state health officials lacked the authority to implement such a rule, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
The state Department of Health reportedly appealed the ruling almost instantaneously, stopping any immediate action.
Judges on the court sided 4-1 with the ranking Republican in the state Senate and others who sued to challenge the mandate, which started in early September.
The judges said Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam’s forced mask order violated state laws about reviewing and approving regulations and was adopted without an existing emergency officially declared by the governor.
The state’s Disease Control Law does not give health secretaries “the blanket authority to create new rules and regulations out of whole cloth, provided they are related in some way to the control of disease or can otherwise be characterized as disease control measures,” wrote Judge Christine Fizzano Cannon, a Republican, for the majority.
full story at https://bigleaguepolitics.com/pennsylvania-court-throws-out-governors-school-mask-mandate-wolf-to-appeal/