Judge Throws Out Federal Mask Mandate for Public Transportation

Herdfan

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Yes, vacated - meaning it doesn’t even count as precedent - which is a very good outcome for preserving the CDC’s powers.

As for the exact same judge getting the same lawsuit, anything is possible. In fact, monkeys could also fly out of my butt.

Yes vacated means it basically didn't exist. So the same or even a new judge could come to the same conclusion.

But had it been overruled, then no judge in that district can re-implement the ban. This would be a much more favorable outcome.
 

Cmaier

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Yes vacated means it basically didn't exist. So the same or even a new judge could come to the same conclusion.

But had it been overruled, then no judge in that district can re-implement the ban. This would be a much more favorable outcome.

Yep. Either you think CDC has the authority or you think they don’t. (They do, btw). If you think they do, then you appeal and play to win - you want the ruling overturned on the merits, not vacated on procedural grounds. If you think they don’t, then you don’t appeal. At least if the only thing at play is legal strategy. Politics adds a whole layer on top of that.

There are also additional legal considerations - overturning it at the appellate level only is precedential for that particular circuit. So whether you win or lose, you can get a new case in the future in some other circuit (e.g. somewhere in Texas), and the court (and relevant appellate court) may reach a different conclusion. The only way to get absolute certainty is if it goes to the Supreme Court, but that would take a very long time.
 

Alli

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It’s important everywhere. Not just planes and trains. I went to donate blood today (will have to return Wednesday after 2 days without my baby aspirin) and while the staff was masked, and the sign on the door asked to please wear a mask, none of the donors were masked…except me.
 

SuperMatt

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Another detailed explanation of how dangerous the judge’s ruling in this case is.

(paywall removed)

The argument in a nutshell:

Judge Mizelle lacks experience or expertise in public health. The C.D.C., conversely, is staffed by virologists, epidemiologists and other highly respected scientists accountable to the president, who in turn can be held to account by the public. A constitutional democracy is challenged when a lone judge, lacking competence in public health, can unilaterally dismantle a nationwide public health policy during a crisis. We can’t think of a worse way for Covid-era masking to end than at the hand of a single federal judge sitting in the Middle District of Florida.
 

SuperMatt

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So, another Trump-appointed judge rules that COVID-19 restrictions still ARE needed, despite the CDC saying they no longer are. But this time, it has to do with brown people crossing the border.

Somebody please explain to me how these conservative judges (both appointed by Trump) can:

1. Justify blocking a mask mandate on the grounds that the CDC exceeded their authority
2. Require that CDC-created COVID-19 restrictions stay in place at the border.

They are showing their 🐴 to the world with these 2 blatantly contradictory rulings. The law and constitution do not matter. It’s all about the politics. Shame on these JINOs. (Judge in Name Only). It’s not whether the CDC has the authority to act: it’s about whether these partisan hacks personally agree with the choices made by the CDC. And if they don’t? 👎

Also, this is more than once that right-wing courts have put limits on executive authority. Something they were FAR more reluctant to do when Trump was in the White House. Please explain to me how one president can enact a policy, and judges can tell the next president “you can’t change that.” ???? Maybe these judges are true Q-Anon believers who think Trump still is President.

The behavior of conservative activist JINOs is VERY concerning. Again, this is pretty much the opposite of democracy.

 
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Herdfan

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So, another Trump-appointed judge rules that COVID-19 restrictions still ARE needed, despite the CDC saying they no longer are. But this time, it has to do with brown people crossing the border.

Somebody please explain to me how these conservative judges (both appointed by Trump) can:

1. Justify blocking a mask mandate on the grounds that the CDC exceeded their authority
2. Require that CDC-created COVID-19 restrictions stay in place at the border.

They are showing their 🐴 to the world with these 2 blatantly contradictory rulings. The law and constitution do not matter. It’s all about the politics. Shame on these JINOs. (Judge in Name Only). It’s not whether the CDC has the authority to act: it’s about whether these partisan hacks personally agree with the choices made by the CDC. And if they don’t? 👎

Also, this is more than once that right-wing courts have put limits on executive authority. Something they were FAR more reluctant to do when Trump was in the White House. Please explain to me how one president can enact a policy, and judges can tell the next president “you can’t change that.” ???? Maybe these judges are true Q-Anon believers who think Trump still is President.

The behavior of conservative activist JINOs is VERY concerning. Again, this is pretty much the opposite of democracy.


I think is actually helps the administration.

They were facing pressure not only from Republicans, but also several members of their own caucus over this. By having a judge rule they can't rescind it, they get 3 things. First, the members of their own party aren't hammering them on it, second, they can tell the progressive wing that they tried and third, they can blame it on a Republican judge.
 

SuperMatt

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I think is actually helps the administration.

They were facing pressure not only from Republicans, but also several members of their own caucus over this. By having a judge rule they can't rescind it, they get 3 things. First, the members of their own party aren't hammering them on it, second, they can tell the progressive wing that they tried and third, they can blame it on a Republican judge.
I think you are probably right about the political aspect of it.

However, how is it that a president issues an executive order, then the new president overturns it, but a judge says ”nope I liked the other president better so I overrule you.”? It’s utter nonsense.
 

Herdfan

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I think you are probably right about the political aspect of it.

However, how is it that a president issues an executive order, then the new president overturns it, but a judge says ”nope I liked the other president better so I overrule you.”? It’s utter nonsense.

How is that different than DACA?
 

SuperMatt

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How is that different than DACA?

First difference: that was a Supreme Court decision, not from just one judge.

Their reasoning was:

"We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies," Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. "'The wisdom' of those decisions 'is none of our concern.' We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action."

Trump’s administration didn’t follow the rule stating that they need to explain the change. In other cases (such as the Muslim ban), Trump was able to get his way by modifying the ban and getting past the (relatively low) threshold of explaining why he wanted the policy. It tells a LOT when you can’t even offer the most basic explanation for why you are doing something.

In the current title 42 case, the reasoning is clear: the CDC no longer considers immigrants a public health threat. The “reasoned explanation” threshold has clearly been met. On what grounds did the judge rule? His statement is only 2 paragraphs with no details, so who even knows? Seems like a political play, with a judge working alongside Republican state governments that want a certain outcome.
 

Herdfan

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First difference: that was a Supreme Court decision, not from just one judge.

Yes, eventually on June 18, 2020. But 3 separate District Courts ruled it must continue on or around March 5, 2018. So yes, individual judges did rule it must continue.
 

SuperMatt

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Yes, eventually on June 18, 2020. But 3 separate District Courts ruled it must continue on or around March 5, 2018. So yes, individual judges did rule it must continue.
Yeah… that’s how things get to the Supreme Court. They get appealed. And when deciding on a stay, it’s general practice to do the least harm possible during the process. So, in the DACA example, you want to suddenly punish millions of people who were made a promise by the government? No, the proper ruling is to keep it in place until things get resolved.

In the case of Title 42, what is the least harm? Since COVID-19 no longer poses the serious threat it did before, the least harm would be to allow asylum seekers to seek asylum, instead of subjecting them to additional hardships. So the proper ruling would be to let it expire while allowing the appeals to process through the courts.

And in the case of the mask mandate, the least harm would have been for the judge to do nothing, since the mandate was going to expire anyway. In fact, a wise judge would have sat on the case for another week or two, see the mandate expire, and toss the whole thing for being a moot point. But that judge wanted to make a political statement instead.

You are seeing judicial malfeasance in both of these cases. The mask mandate one is worse… at least the title 42, it is an early ruling. The new policy isn’t in place yet, and there’s plenty of time for appeals and/or a change by the Biden administration. So I think it’s fair to be more harsh towards the mask mandate judge. The point of bringing up the title 42 ruling is a point of comparison to show that the conservative justices are directly contradicting each other here, and in both cases, apparently for political reasons, not reasons of the law.
 

SuperMatt

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This is a great essay discussing some of the recent rulings mentioned in this thread. Whatever happened to conservatives calling for judicial restraint?

(paywall removed)

A nationwide injunction, then-Attorney General William P. Barr warned in 2019, “gives a single judge the unprecedented power to render irrelevant the decisions of every other jurisdiction in the country.” The next year, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, decried the “increasingly common practice of trial courts ordering relief that transcends the cases before them,” arguing it creates “a nearly boundless opportunity to shop for a friendly forum to secure a win nationwide.”

Somehow conservatives’ complaints have been muted with a Democratic administration in office. In the “Remain in Mexico” case argued this week, the justices refused the Biden administration’s earlier entreaty to lift a district judge’s order that it reinstate the Trump policy. It’s hard to square that with the court’s willingness to intervene when a different district judge blocked “Remain in Mexico” from taking effect. What’s the difference, exactly, other than that one policy was adopted by a Republican president and one by a Democrat?
Combine this with conservative judges’ antipathy to regulation, and you have a recipe for judicial activism. This was on florid display in the mask mandate case. The judge strained to ignore statutory language authorizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to take steps “as may be necessary” to limit contagion. She adopted a particularly cramped interpretation of the law’s provision allowing for “sanitation” measures. She found the CDC had no power to take such a “major” step as requiring passengers to mask up.
 

SuperMatt

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In yet another blow to the idea that the judiciary follows the constitution instead of politics:


To summarize: one right-wing judge said a mask mandate exceeds the CDC’s authority, while another says the blocking of migrants in the name of health protections must be kept in place.

Come on, man…
 
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