Texas Mask Mandate Lawsuit Attorney Welcomes Florida Judge Striking Mandate in Separate Suit, but Says: ‘Our Case Will Continue’

The executive director and general counsel of the Texas Public Policy Foundation told The Star News Network he welcomed Monday’s ruling in Florida by federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for public transportation and air travel.

“The arguments that are pending in our ongoing lawsuit in Texas are the same arguments that prevailed in the case in Florida with a judge in Florida agreeing that the Centers for Disease Control did not have the statutory authority that it claimed to impose a face-covering requirement for all Americans engaging in transportation,” said Robert Henneke, who represents both the foundation and Texas Republican Rep. Beth Van Duyne in an independent lawsuit challenging both the CDC’s mask mandate and the Transportation Safety Administration’s derivative mandate that relies on the CDC’s now-overturned authority.

“Because our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends, the court declares unlawful and vacates the mask mandate,” wrote the judge, who was nominated by President Donald J. Trump, and confirmed to the bench two weeks after the 2020 election, in her 59-page opinion. The plaintiff in the lawsuit was the Health Freedom Defense Fund.

“The court also held that the Biden Administration committed error when it implemented the mask mandate without going through the notice and comment requirements under the Administrative Procedures Act,” Henneke said.

The lawyer said the administration’s flawed regulatory process for the mask mandate fits into a pattern. “With the Biden Administration over the last two years of COVID, so much of their regulatory efforts have been attempted to be shoehorned through the CDC under a public health-type argument.”

Henneke said both his case and the Florida case focus on the constitutional process…. (Excerpt from the Virginia Star)