–by Sarah Meiselman
Katheryn Kimball Mizelle, the judge of the public transportation mask mandate court case (Source: gestta.co.uk)
(Source: gestta.co.uk)
With vaccines and many people already having been infected, COVID-19’s power over our actions is slowly depleting. Because of this, the end to the mask mandate on public transportation was expected. The events that led up to it, however, did not play out as most people had assumed they would.
The mask mandate came into effect in January of 2021. With 700,000 COVID-19 infections per day, Biden issued an executive order that requires masks in airports, airplanes, and other forms of public transportation, after he received a strong recommendation from the CDC, that some considered an order. This use of power by the CDC was possible because, under the Public Health Service Act of 1944, the CDC was authorized to make and enforce regulations affecting interstate travel that were necessary to prevent the introduction and transmission of a contagious disease coming from foreign countries or spreading between states.
The mask mandate sparked outrage across the United States, especially in the more conservative states. Lawsuits were filed, but the first effective one was in Tampa, Florida. The judge of the case was Katheryn Kimball Mizelle, an appointee of President Donald Trump. Her decision effectively ended the mandate the same day of the lawsuit, although she was labeled unqualified to serve on the Federal Bench because of her lack of court room experience by the American Bar Association.
Her focus for the case was on the Public Health Service Act of 1944. The regulations listed in the act include inspection, fumigation (purifying an area with the fumes of certain chemicals), disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, and other measures. Judge Mizelle’s success came with her interpretation of sanitation as being a measure to clean something. She claimed that masks do not fulfill this. She also stressed that the CDC overstepped its authority when issuing the mandate, failed to properly explain the decision, and did not follow the proper rulemaking procedures.
If the ruling stands, it could impact the CDC’s power in the future, because the court took away the CDC’s authority to act against diseases. Currently, the white house has appealed to the ruling but did not ask for the mask mandate to come back because of pressure from the public. If the white house loses the case, the results of Mizelle’s decision will be the existing federal court ruling, and other courts will look to it to guide their own rulings.
The odds of case on appeal are leaning in Biden’s favor. Many legal experts believe that the narrow focus on sanitation misinterpreted the fundamentals of the CDC’s authority under the Public Health Service Act. The judge’s ruling also claimed that the CDC failed to publicly comment on the mask order under the administrative procedures act, which requires public comment for most federal actions, causing an abuse of power. Legal experts, however, say that this was not an abuse of power because under emergency, the federal government is exempt from this. The results of this appeal will either solidify the power of the CDC or change the government’s options of response to future diseases, redefining US freedom in a pandemic.
