OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Another court has ended another mandate in what is becoming a common theme in the United States as the Constitution does not leave a ton of room for government mandates on anything.
On Friday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed with a Commonwealth Court decision that said Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam could not issue a mask mandate for everyone indoors at schools because she did not have the authority, The Epoch Times reported.
It means, effective immediately, school mask mandates are no longer mandatory, although many schools have a local rule that students who wish to wear a mask may still do so.
The suit was brought by Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, a Republican who is running for governor. It was filed personally, as a parent, along with other parents, and not as part of a Senate action.
“With today’s ruling, the power for parents and local leaders to make health and safety decisions in our schools is restored,” he said. “That power comes with an obligation to review the facts and act in the best interests of our communities—which is why legislative leaders sent a letter to Governor Tom Wolf yesterday to reconvene the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force. I encourage all stakeholders to review the needs and conditions in our communities to make the best choices for our kids.”
Wolf recently announced he would return masking decisions over to local school leaders on Jan. 17, so some were surprised when the state’s Department of Health appealed the Commonwealth Court’s decision and continued fighting for the mandatory mask mandate.
While the state battled in court to keep masks on kids, on Dec. 6, educators gathered without students and appeared unconcerned about masking.
Secretary of Education Noe Ortega announced that Elizabeth Raff, an educator at Penn Manor School District in Lancaster County, was named the 2022 Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year.
This week a federal court nixed a vaccine mandate that President Biden had in place for the employees of federal contractors.
News 2 Charleston reported.
“Abuse of power by the Biden administration has been stopped cold again. The rule of law has prevailed and liberty is protected. When the President oversteps his authority the law is thankfully there to halt his misuse of power,” the attorney general said.
The judge issued a preliminary injunction which prohibits the government from enforcing the mandate, which marks the third time federal judges have sided with the attorney general against the Biden administration on the mandate.
The case was brought by Attorney General Wilson and Governor Henry McMaster, along with attorneys general and governors of six other states including Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, Utah, and West Virginia. Other state entities are also named as plaintiffs.
The lawsuit argues that the federal mandate, issued by President Biden on Sept. 9, is unconstitutional as it violates the Tenth Amendment, which grants states and the people powers that are not delegated by the Constitution to the federal government. It also calls into question the lack of exceptions for contractors that “work alone, outside, or even exclusively remotely.”
“A federal judge has again sided with Attorney General Alan Wilson and today blocked the vaccine requirement for federal contractors. This is the third time courts have agreed with Attorney General Wilson and blocked vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden administration,” the attorney general’s office said on Twitter.
“Doughty ruled on the lawsuit led by Republican Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and joined by 13 other states, but Doughty added a nationwide injunction in his ruling,” the news organization reported.
“If the separation of powers meant anything to the Constitutional framers, it meant that the three necessary ingredients to deprive a person of liberty or property – the power to make rules, to enforce them, and to judge their violations – could never fall into the same hands,” the judg
