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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Texas schools keep mask mandates, defying orders from state high court

Officials in Texas’ largest metro areas are sticking to mask requirements for public schools, in defiance of the Republican governor and Texas Supreme Court.

HOUSTON (CN) — As schools across Texas start classes Monday, the legal battle over masks has intensified. Despite the Texas Supreme Court on Sunday granting Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s request to stay mask edicts issued by officials in San Antonio and Dallas, school leaders vowed to keep them in place.

The Covid-19 delta variant is pummeling Texas and the number of coronavirus hospitalizations is on track to surpass earlier surges in the pandemic, with this round seeing more young adults and children, even toddlers, hooked up to ventilators in ICU units.

Democratic officials in the state’s largest metro areas in the counties of Travis, Harris, Bexar and Dallas have instituted mask-up orders for public schools and government buildings, in defiance of Abbott’s order forbidding mask mandates.

Abbott turned to the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court after lower courts allowed Bexar County, home of San Antonio, to require face coverings in schools, and Dallas County to impose a broader mandate that calls for mask wearing in county buildings, public schools, universities and businesses.

In mandamus petitions to the high court, Abbott claimed Bexar and Dallas County leaders are hurting the state’s efforts to “carry out an orderly, cohesive, and uniform response to the Covid-19 pandemic."

The litigation hinges on the Texas Disaster Act of 1975 and the power that law gives Texas governors to issue emergency declarations.

Abbott claims a state judge erred when she found that the city of San Antonio and Bexar County’s mask order is valid because when the governor and localities issue contradictory orders, the local orders control.

The governor asked the Texas Supreme Court to intervene after the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio refused to side with him.

“The Texas Disaster Act of 1975 mandated the opposite; it makes the governor the ‘commander in chief’ of the state’s response to a disaster … and empowers him to issue executive orders that have the ‘force and effect of law,’” attorneys for Abbott's office wrote in a mandamus petition to the state's high court.

Despite the high court’s orders temporarily staying Dallas and Bexar counties from enforcing their mask mandates, Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said he will not change course.

“We’re going to keep the mask mandate in place. As that order was issued it applied to Dallas County only. School districts were not mentioned in the order,” he told CNN on Monday.

San Antonio’s city attorney also downplayed the Texas Supreme Court’s stay orders.

“The city of San Antonio and Bexar County’s response to the Texas Supreme Court continues to emphasize that the governor cannot use his emergency powers to suspend laws that provide local entities the needed flexibility to act in an emergency,” City Attorney Andy Segovia said in a statement.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, has a different take on the high court’s rulings.

“Local mask mandates are illegal under GA-38. Let this ruling serve as a reminder to all ISDs and Local officials that the governor’s order stands,” he wrote Sunday on Twitter.

Harris County and neighboring Fort Bend County have also secured temporary restraining orders allowing them to implement mask orders for schools and county buildings. Abbott is expected to also ask the Texas Supreme Court to stay those orders should intermediate appellate courts side with the counties.

Bexar County and San Antonio noted the Texas Supreme Court did not rule on Abbott’s mandamus petitions, in which the governor seeks a declaration the Texas Disaster Act gives him broad authority, superseding the authority of local officials, to respond to emergencies.

Because the high court only stayed Bexar County and San Antonio’s mask mandate, they said they will move forward with presenting their case Monday before state Judge Antonia Arteaga, asking her for temporary injunction allowing them to keep the mandate in place.

Dallas County has a hearing Aug. 24 before state Judge Tonya Parker, who granted it permission to implement its mask decree.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins – the county's executive officer, not a court of law judge – said he likes the county’s chances to win a temporary injunction blocking Abbott's efforts to nix the county's mask edict.

“We won’t stop working with parents, doctors, schools, business + others to protect you and intend to win that hearing,” he tweeted Sunday.

School officials in Austin, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas say they are following guidance issued recently by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that recommends universal indoor masking for all students, staff, teachers, and visitors to schools regardless of if they have been vaccinated.

Follow Cameron Langford on Twitter

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Categories / Appeals, Education, Government, Health, Regional

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