Monthly Archives: August 2021

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican in a deeply blue state who has so far resisted issuing a mask mandate or vaccination requirement for schools, came under pressure this week for stricter regulations from the states largest teachers union.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association board of directors voted on Tuesday, 46 to 4, to adopt a vaccine requirement for all eligible students and staff, following up on a unanimous vote August 1 in favor of a mask mandate. The unions president, Merrie Najimy, noted that Governor Baker has resisted taking these steps.

Educators and our unions are doing everything in our power to ensure that public schools and colleges can open safely, she said. We continue to be alarmed by the failure of state political leaders to follow our example.

She added, its as if Governor Baker and other state education officials have learned nothing over the past year and a half.

Governor Baker is facing a drumbeat of pressure on masking requirements; some of his fellow Republican governors in conservative states like Texas, Florida and Arizona have put up far stronger resistance, by issuing bans on mask and vaccine mandates.

Polling suggests strong support for a school mask mandate in the state, with 81 percent of Massachusetts voters in favor of the idea, and just 12 percent opposing it, according a survey released Thursday by The MassINC Polling Group.

Governor Baker, a Republican, has said he prefers to leave masking decisions to local officials, who know these communities best.

Different communities are in different places, he told GBH, a radio station. You have some communities in Massachusetts where 85 to 95 percent of all the kids and the middle and high school are vaccinated. You have many other districts in Massachusetts where the numbers are far, far smaller.

On Thursday afternoon, however, Governor Baker announced a strict vaccine mandate for 42,000 state executive department employees, requiring them to show proof of vaccination by mid-October.

The rest is here:

Massachusetts teachers union presses the Republican governor for a vaccine mandate. - The New York Times

The Iowa State Fair is at full boil. Its a little light on the political tourists because its not the summer before a year ending in 0, 4, 8, 12, or 16. Which is not to say that it is entirely devoid of migrant politicians from other states, or the media they drag around in their wake. On occasion, these are politicians you should keep an eye on because they have national aspirations. On other occasions, these are politicians you should keep an eye on to make sure they dont get into the poultry barn and start biting the heads off all the chickens. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Well, thats one way to describe it that begins with an S.

And, dear lord, she brought a friend, someone on whom people are keeping an eye for a whole different bunch of reasons.

Iowa needs to beef up its border security.

Oops, might be too late.

And furthermore:

I dont think MTG is elevating her national profile as much more than a wandering geek show, but her recent travels illustrate certain immutable political realities. One, that the Republican Party is no longer capable of controlling her and the people who follow her, and two, that the Republican Party cannot exist as a national party without them. Shes out there ahead of them, beating them to the freshest corn dogs.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Out of the Republican Party's Control - Esquire.com

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, blamed Black Texans for the country's recent surge in COVID cases and hospitalizations.

"African Americans who have not been vaccinated" are "the biggest group in most states" driving the new surge in the coronavirus cases, Patrick said on a Thursday night Fox News broadcast with host Laura Ingraham. Patrick's comments came after Ingraham askedthe Texas official whether he thought lax Republican policies were enabling the spread of the virus.

"Democrats like to blame Republicans on that," Patrick answered. "Well, the biggest group in most states are African Americans who have not been vaccinated. The last time I checked, over 90 percent of them vote for Democrats in their major cities and major counties, so it's up to the Democrats, just as it's up to Republicans, to try to get as many people vaccinated."

Patrick later defended people's choice to remain unvaccinated, saying "that's their individual right."

"[The Democrats] are doing nothing for the African American community that has a significant, high number of unvaccinated people," Patrick added.

"TikTok videos. We've got a lot of TikTok videos," Ingrahm responded, eliding any context.

The Lt. Governor's comments drew immediate scorn online, with many critics suggesting his comments were blatantly racist.

"The Lt. Governor's statements are offensive and should not be ignored," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner wrote on Thursday.

Political commentator Keith Olberman echoed: "Bluntly: @DanPatrick is this era's Orville Faubus or Lester Maddox. May he burn in hell for it."

"Lt. Gov. @DanPatrick is a lying racist," tweeted Dr. Jorge A. Caballero, clinical instructor at the Stanford University School of Medicine. "We know this because [census] data shows that White Texans are responsible for twice as many cases as Black Texans, and there are 3 unvaccinated White Texans for every 1 unvaccinated Black Texan."

According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, Black residents in the Lone Star State made up 16.4% of the state's new cases and just 10.2% of deaths as of Aug. 13, as The Washington Post noted. In fact, the highest case rates are seen in the state's White and Hispanic populations, who respectively account for 34.9 percent and 35.8 percent of all coronavirus cases in Texas.

Patrick's comments come amid a period of heightened partisan conflict in the state, with Texas' Republican leadership attempting to wrest control over policies regarding vaccine and mask mandates. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has been especially active on this front, fighting to ban mask mandates in school districts despite a sharp uptick in COVID cases amongst kids.

On Tuesday, Abbot announced that he himself had contracted the disease the very same day Texas requested five additional mortuary trailers to accommodate an expected wave of deaths.

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Republicans in Texas are trying to shift blame for COVID surge to Black people - Salon

It's never been altogether clear why, exactly, Republicans like Gov. Ron DeSantis fight so aggressively against mask protections during the pandemic. At an event this week, the Floridian briefly explained his perspective.

"Politicians want to force you to cover your face as a way for them to cover their own asses," the governor claimed. "That's just the truth. They want to be able to say they are taking this on and they're doing this even though it's not proven to be effective they want to continue to do it."

The rhetoric was bizarre for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that mask protections have, in reality, proven to be effective.

Nearly as curious is the politics of DeSantis' posturing. The governor isn't just quietly taking on school districts trying to help protect children, he's embracing the fight as if he were convinced that indifference to viral infections will prove to be a political winner. The New York Times' Jamelle Bouie marveled yesterday at the Florida Republican's willingness to make COVID-19 "the center of his national political persona," even as the pandemic takes a brutal toll on his state.

As a matter of public health, the tactics Americans have seen from DeSantis and others like him are disastrous, as evidenced by overflowing hospitals in several parts of the country. But as a Washington Post analysis noted yesterday, it's also striking to see prominent Republican voices take dangerous stands that are broadly unpopular with the American mainstream.

[O]n the central battleground -- masks in schools -- 69 percent of Americans support the mandate, per a new Axios/Ipsos poll. And when it comes to both vaccine mandates and the methods to fight mask mandates that some Republicans are floating, the verdict is also pretty strongly against the GOP. The Economist and YouGov released a new poll Wednesday asking Americans whether they would support vaccine mandates for a number of groups. And in every case the survey asked about, there was majority -- and often 2-to-1 -- support.

The same article added the aforementioned Axios-Ipsos poll that that nearly 80% of Americans oppose withholding funding from local school districts that require masks, which happens to be the approach preferred by the DeSantis administration.

We're accustomed to thinking about political disputes in left-vs-right and Democrats-vs-Republicans terms. But when it comes to public-health protections during a pandemic that's killed over 628,000 Americans, survey data suggests this is more an instance in which Republicans are up against the broader American mainstream, not their rival party.

For these GOP officials, it would appear to be the worst of both worlds: putting people at greater risk, while simultaneously ignoring popular will.

But for DeSantis and others, there's an assumption that pleasing the Republican base is all that matters. The question isn't whether an idea is popular in general, the question is whether an idea is popular with those who vote in GOP primaries, consume conservative media, and donate to the right's causes.

The Post's analysis concluded, "[O]n the political front, the Republican Party has rather clearly marched itself into a minority position." It just doesn't seem to care.

See the article here:

On COVID protections, Republicans aren't just at odds with Dems - MSNBC

In late June, Arizona lawmakers had until the end of the month to meet a deadline to adopt a new state budget. Republicans traditionally pass spending plans on party lines, rather than negotiate a bipartisan agreement with Democrats.

On June 28, with less than 72 hours to spare, Rep. Joseph Chaplik told conservative radio host Garret Lewis hed refuse to vote for a budget if it didnt include a ban on mask mandates in K-12 public schools.

I said Im not signing onto the education budget if we dont have control of the masks,the Scottsdale Republican said. And when I say control, the parents should have control. The children and parents should have control, not the school boards, not the school districts.

List: Arizona School Districts Requiring Masks For 2021-2022 School Year

Its called horse trading Chaplik was leveraging his vote on the budget for something in return.

Its a game that a lot of people play, he said. But a lot of people play, Garret, in terms of asking for appropriations, like I need this for my district, I need millions of dollars for this project, or whatever a lobbyist is pushing, and Im not playing that game.

Coppersmith Brockelman

Roopali Desai

Thats where attorney Roopali Desai said Republicans like Chaplik got it wrong. On Aug. 12,she filed a lawsuit on behalf of Arizonas teachers union, school business officials, civic groups and others arguing that a handful of other policies that were passed as part of the budget are unconstitutional.

That includes rules for conducting elections, regulations for what teachers can and cant talk about in their classrooms, and the ban on local school leaders requiring students and staff to wear masks.

What they all have in common, Desai says, is they have nothing in common with the budget.

There's not any budget provision relating to a prohibition on COVID-19 mitigation policies (like mask requirements), she said. It's simply a substantive policy that was put in here because, and as we cited in the complaint, certain legislators insisted that it be in there if somebody wanted them to vote on a budget.

The city of Phoenix filed a separate lawsuit making the same argument earlier this week.City attorneys say a policy designed to neuter civilian oversight of the Phoenix Police Department is unconstitutional because it shouldnt have been included in the budget.

Its not the substance of the laws that are at issue. Its the way Republicans approved them.

When legislators negotiate a budget, theres typically a dozen or so bills that detail the spending plan.One is known as the feed bill its a list of all the appropriations of state revenues. Then there are budget reconciliation bills, BRBs for short. Divided into subjects like public safety and infrastructure, these bills act like an instruction manual for the feed bill. They provide details for state agencies and local governments on how to spend money in the budget.

Its like connecting the dots between a provision in the manual and an appropriation, Desai said.

You should be able to, if done correctly, line up the provision in the appropriations bill that then requires or results in a provision being put into a BRB, she said.

When theres nothing connecting a policy in a BRB to the states budget, thats a violation of the Arizona Constitution, Desai said theres a rule that a bill can only tackle one thing, or one single subject, at a time.

When it comes to the budget, Desai says the subject is how to spend taxpayer dollars.

Rocio Hernandez/KJZZ

Beth Lewis, executive director of Save Our Schools Arizona, says she and other education advocates are prepared to launch a referendum against the proposed flat tax plan if it gets to that.

Beth Lewis is a mother, teacher and executive director of Save Our Schools Arizona, a group of public school advocates whove been active at the Capitol since 2017.

Horse trading may be a part of the political game, but Lewis said Republicans took it too far with the budget.

At the end of the day, these lawmakers and the special interests that are driving these, you know, sort of pet projects or pet positions, were forced in to get other people to vote on the budget, she said. And that's just not the way the legislative process should work.

At a panel hosted by the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 17, Senate President Karen Fann lamented how the budget process played out.

The Prescott Republican said her partys dwindling numbers at the Capitol were to blame. Republicans, whove held legislative majorities in both chambers for nearly three decades, dont give Democrats a seat at the table when it comes to the budget. And the Republican majority this year was so slim that to pass a budget on party lines, all 31 Republicans in the House and all 16 in the Senate had to vote for it.

Everyone knew that they were either number 16, or number 31, which created a challenge in, we ended up having to put policy in the budget that not necessarily everybody was on board with. But to get that budget moving, that's what we had to do, Fann said.

Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann on May 8, 2020.

That was not fun, she said.

Lewis said lawmakers can do better.

That's definitely politics, Lewis said. But with the single-subject rule with budget bills, we should really be talking about appropriations, and I think this is what the courts are going to decide, right? Is it unconstitutional to push in all of this other legislation when lawmakers are supposed to be talking about how to fund our state budget?

There are a number of laws at stake in the two complaints filed against Arizona. Those laws are scheduled to take effect on Sept. 29. On Thursday, Desai asked the court to block the state from enforcing laws she says shouldnt have passed as part of the budget.

The courts could also send a message to Republicans that politics as usual, when it comes to budget negotiations, must change.

The budget, Desai said, should stick to the budget.

This often happens lawsuits are brought to put folks back on the right track. This is what our founding fathers required and sort of envisioned for the process, the legislative process. It's in our Constitution, she said. We've gone astray from that process, we need the courts to set those boundaries. And then hopefully, moving forward, if we're successful in this case, the legislature won't engage in these kinds of shenanigans.

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Arizona Republican Lawmakers Packed The Budget With Policies And Regulations. Was That Unconstitutional? - KJZZ

Pop quiz: Youre a U.S. lawmaker and the Capitol just had to be evacuated because a man parked his truck outside the Library of Congress and delivered a tirade on Facebook Live assailing the president and other members of the Democratic Party, calling for a revolt against the government, and threatening to detonate a bomb just blocks from the scene of an insurrection earlier this year. The situation would have been terrifying enough on its own but was extra disturbing and scary given the events of January 6 and the violent sentiments expressed by supporters of the last president. Do you (a) denounce the actions of the individual and offer gratitude to the law enforcement agents who were on the scene (b) Insist that no matter ones politics, violent rhetoric and behavior is never acceptable or (c) basicallyside with the guy and say you fully understand where hes coming from? If youre a member of the Republican Party in the year 2021, the answer is a resounding C.

Just hours after Floyd Ray Roseberry was taken into custody, Rep. Mo Brooks released an absurd statement effectively sympathizing with what the guy was feeling when he, again, threatened to set off a bomb on Capitol Hill. Naturally, Brooks threw in a reference to socialism, likely knowing its the sort of red meat the conservative base absolutely eats up.

As historian Kevin Kruse commented on Twitter, it seems like [Roseberry] was motivated by the irresponsible idiots who keep insisting the 2020 election was riggedhey, do you know anyone who might fit that description? Brooks, of course, was one of the leading GOP voices spreading the lie that Joe Bidens 2020 win was illegitimate, saying all the way back in November, Theres no way Ill vote in the House to ratify the Electoral College votes of states where illegal votes distorted the will of the people in those states who voted legally. Later, he gave a speech to the crowd at the Stop the Steal rally that preceded the deadly riot on Capitol Hill in which he directed Donald Trumps supporters to start taking down names and kicking ass. (In July, the Department of Justice said it would not defend him against a lawsuit over his role inciting the violent mob.)

In his livestream, Roseberry said, among other things, The revolution is on, its here, its today. America needs a voice. Ill give it to them.

Brookss statement was unsurprisingly met with disgust, which is the only correct response (though kicking him out of Congress would be a good idea too.)

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Republican Lawmaker Mo Brooks Says He Understands the Motivations of the Guy Who Threatened to Blow Up Capitol Hill - Vanity Fair

Photo: Saul Loeb (Getty Images)

We know Republicans lie. We know they are racist.

Despite the GOPs incessant whinery about identity politics and the race card, racist dog whistles are part of their political ideology. They literally sponsored a white supremacist insurrection and made taxpayers foot the bill for white nationalists like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, who were on the White House payroll. Then they lied about the election. Then they tried to toss out Black peoples votes in that election. Then they lied about the insurrection to undo that election. Then they passed laws targeting Black peoples votes.

They are liars. They are racists. We already knew this.

But when Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (not that one) and Fox News resident Nazi Barbie blamed the worsening COVID pandemic on Black peoples lack of vaccination and affinity for TikTok, it wasnt just a racist, stupid lie. It was mathematically, scientifically and factually wrong. It was so wrong, the only way someone could believe such a blatant disregard for facts is if they, too, were racist. And stupid. And a liar.

The COVID is spreading; most of the numbers are with the unvaccinated, Patrick whitesplained before Fox News host Laura Ingraham babbled something about TikTok videos. The biggest group in most states are African Americans who have not been vaccinated. The last time I checked, over 90 percent of them voted for Democrats in their major cities and major counties.

G/O Media may get a commission

Lets be clear. The second-in-command of the countrys second-most populous state didnt misspeak. Since African Americans are 12.9 percent of the states population and 7.9 percent of vaccinations, Patrick knows Black Texans are more vaccinated than white Texans. Nationwide, Black Americans have been getting vaccinated at higher rates than whites and may soon surpass non-Hispanic whites in the percentage of vaccinated, according to CDC data and KFF. Plus, Patrick knows that there are three times more white people in Texas than Black people. He knows that there are five times more white people in America than Black people. So he knows the biggest group in most states are African Americans who have not been vaccinated is not true.

He was lying. He knows what biggest means. Patrick knows how numbers work. But its hard to prove he was lying about the Democrat statement. Aside from polling, there really isnt much data because no one has compared COVID cases, deaths or even vaccination rates to political parties. We looked, but we couldnt find very specific data.

So we did it ourselves.

Instead of comparing apples to oranges, we used the CDCs data to compare each states per capita rates of positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths as of August 18, 2020. We also included the political party of each states governor, along with the states popular vote total in the 2020 presidential election to analyze the political effect on each states COVID status.

Given their aversion to masks, vaccines and facts, it may be safe to assume that COVID-19 is worse in Republican-led states. But we wanted to see if states that voted for Trump were experiencing the pandemic differently than states who voted for Joe Biden. Have efforts to ban mask mandates, open schools and spread disinformation by Republican governors like Floridas Ron DeSantis and Texas Greg Abbott affected vaccine rates and COVID cases?

What we found was staggering.

Red states are failing at protecting their citizens from the coronavirus in every measurable outcome. The COVID-19 pandemic hospitalizes and kills residents of MAGA states at twice the rate of states that voted for Joe Biden. Even worse, people who live in states with Republican governors are experiencing a pandemic that is one-and-a-half times worse than states with Democratic governors. Fewer citizens of GOP-led states have been vaccinated, more people catch the virus, more people are hospitalized and more people die.

Thank you for coming out. God bless. Good night.

Graphic: Datawrapper, The Root

What? You need more?

Here are a few more facts that may interest you:

Of course, even taking the GOPs anti-science stance into consideration, it is an oversimplification to say that Republicans are responsible for the pandemic. The truth is much more complex and any realistic analysis must factor in urbanization, income, the availability of rural healthcare and community resources. Still, the data is remarkably consistent on this. Feel fre to sort through it yourself.

Unless, of course, you are busy making a TikTok.

.

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We Fact-Checked Fox News' Racist Lie. It Turns Out, the Pandemic Is Worse in Republican States - The Root

Larry David (Photo by Kevork S. Djansezian/Getty Images via JTA.org)

By Gabe Friedman

Alan Dershowitzs Marthas Vineyard vacations are stillprettay, prettayuncomfortable.

Larry David screamed at the prominent legal commentator at a popular convenience store on the island, theNew York Postreported Wednesday, over Dershowitzs ties to the Donald Trump camp in recent years.

Those ties have made him a pariah at the posh vacation spotsince at least 2018, reports have claimed. But the David episode, involving two of the worlds most prominent Jews, is circulating on the internet for its humorous details.

David apparently hit Dershowitz with this line, among others: Its disgusting. Your whole enclave its disgusting. Youre disgusting! The lawyer clapped back before he drove off in an old, dirty Volvo.

Dershowitz didnt find the scene to be funny, he said. After David critiqued him for cozying up to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Dershowitz told the Post that he worked with Pompeo, a former student of his at Harvard, on the Trump administrations Israel policy.

While [David] was writing bad jokes, I was helping to bring about peace in the Middle East, Dershowitz said.

Dershowitz defended Trump against impeachment calls through several TV interviews during his presidency, and critics have also pointed to the famed O.J. Simpson defenders tiesto the late disgraced Jewish financier Jeffrey Epstein. In response, many of his liberal Marthas Vineyard friends, such as David, now shun Dershowitz.

Im reveling not whining, hetweeted in 2018.Im proud of taking an unpopular, principled position that gets me shunned by partisan zealots. Its not about me. I couldnt care less about being shunned by such people.

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Larry David Reportedly Yelled at Alan Dershowitz Over His Trump, Republican Ties - Jewish Exponent

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is not only fighting a COVID-19 infectionhes also on the front lines of a clash within conservatism. The Republican has declared his state the Freedom Capital of America. He has consistently prioritized cutting regulations on business, and in a 2018 opinion column boasted, Innovation and self-reliance are deeply rooted in the Lone Star State, and when freed from the stranglehold of over taxation and overregulation, new ideas flourish. By limiting senseless government restrictions, the opportunity to succeed in business is as limitless as the land itself.

The pandemic has given Abbott new avenues to push for freedoms. Abbott has, for example, barred state agencies and organizations that receive state funding from requiring vaccines for consumers. We will continue to vaccinate more Texans and protect public healthand we will do so without treading on Texans personal freedoms, Abbott said in a statement in April.

The public-health wisdom of this position is dubious, but it is consistent with the idea of limiting government restraints. Whats confusing is a bill that Abbott signed in June, which bans businesses from requiring customers to be vaccinated. With rising concern about, and case counts from, the Delta variant, the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission issued a warning on August 12 declaring that restaurants and bars that ask customers to show proof of vaccination might have their liquor licenses revoked.

Politicians who ban mask mandates and vaccine passports are not actually anti-government, as it might seem, but simply have a different view about how government should wield its power. Texas Republicans are caught between maximizing personal freedom (such as the freedom of patrons to vaccinate themselves, or not, and go to any business) and remaining opposed to government mandates on business (such as allowing private establishments to run their own affairs, freed from the stranglehold of regulation). Forced to choose between their stated commitments to individual and business freedom, Abbott and his allies in the state legislature chose individuals.

Although competing visions exist for where the conservative movement should be headed, they share a common bedrock: defending and expanding liberty. The tension that the coronavirus pandemic has uncovered is between what kinds of liberty to defend, and for whoma conflict that pits the freedom of people to choose whether they are vaccinated against the freedom of others to avoid sharing private spaces with the unvaccinated.

David A. Graham: Mitch McConnell learns it isnt personalits strictly business

Its wild to see conservatives hankering to place restrictions on private business, Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan (and an Atlantic contributor), told me.

The clash here is not merely a split between the traditional progressive focus on liberty as the ability to achieve ones potential and the conservative emphasis on negative liberty, or the lack of restraints imposed by government on citizens. (Of course, the conservative movement has not always extended this devotion to negative liberty to everyone, especially LGBTQ people and those wanting an abortion.) Contemporary American conservatives have followed a small-government philosophy and have tended to treat negative liberty as something that applies equally to individuals and to groups of them: Corporations are people, my friend, Mitt Romney said in 2011. Conservative judges have issued rulings that have extended protection of religious freedom and free speech, in the guise of political giving, to corporations. COVID-19 has shown, once again, that individuals and corporations interests are not always aligned.

This split comes amid a broader tension between American businesses and conservative politicians. In recent years, a growing number of corporations have spoken out on social issues, including support for LGBTQ rights and voting access. These positions are not necessarily signs that big business has transformed into woke capital, as some conservatives claim; rather, they represent entrepreneurs making judgments about what is best for their bottom line, having considered the views of employees, investors, and companies. Republican politiciansmost prominently Mitch McConnellhave howled with anger that companies are criticizing them after years of the GOP serving business interests.

But Texass anti-vaccine-passport law, and those like it in other states, show that the betrayals cut both ways. Seeing putatively hard-line conservative governments leap to place restrictions on businessesespecially regarding a question so fundamental as the health of entrepreneurs and their employeescould very well make business interests question the strength of their long-standing alliance with Republicans. Put differently, in the new paradigm, businesses might be sorted by their COVID-19 politics, not by the mere fact of being a business.

The pandemic has also sharpened an existing hypocrisy within the Republican Party over the importance of local control in government. As I wrote in 2017, growing GOP power in state capitals and more uniform liberal control in urban areas have created an inversion of traditional views about federalism. Liberals have come to view municipal government as a key center for progressive reform, while Republicans have become skeptical of their long-held devotion to local control and have enjoyed exercising state power to smack down city-level gun control, living-wage laws, fracking bans, and more.

COVID-19 has supercharged this tension. First came a round of clashes about mask mandates last summer. Liberal and liberal-leaning cities such as Atlanta, Houston, and San Antonio sought to require people to wear masks in public spaces. Conservative state governments passed laws or enacted executive orders preventing people from doing so. This is, once again, a valid exercise of governmental power, if not a wise one. But it is hardly a restrained one, and conflicts with the traditional conservative view that local populations know how to govern themselves best. Instead, these Republican officials once again decided that individual freedom was the more important value.

David A. Graham: The battle for local control is now a matter of life and death

Were now witnessing a reprise of this battle, especially centered on school districts. Education is another complicated space for federalism. Across the U.S., some choices are typically left to local authorities while others are controlled by the state. For example, all 50 states have laws requiring vaccines for some illnesses. In Texas, a legal battle is ping-ponging among courts over Abbotts ban on mask mandates, and local officials in San Antonio have announced that they will mandate masks and require teachers and staff to be vaccinated, notwithstanding the governors orders. In Florida, some school districts say they will attempt to mandate masks, despite a ban from Governor Ron DeSantis, also a Republican. The DeSantis administration threatened to defund districts that defy the ban and dock the pay of superintendents and school-board members who impose mandates, but later acknowledged that the state has no such power.

Progressive responses to the loosening conservative commitment to local control and business deregulation have varied. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he would authorize the Department of Education to take legal action against states that block COVID-19 precautions. The liberal law professor Laurence Tribe wants to see the federal government step in to sue states on behalf of parentsa classic exercise of federal power.

In other cases, liberals find themselves in the unusual position of defending business against government interference. That is an outlier in recent political history, during which liberals have more often wanted government to force businesses to accept customers, as in the Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court case, which involved a baker who declined to provide a cake for a same-sex wedding, citing religious views. Yet though religious-freedom carve-outs and vaccine-mandate opposition appear to flow from a similar sense of conservative persecution by the culture at large, the comparison is superficial. Businesses are legally permitted to discriminate among customers all the timefor example, against patrons not wearing shirts or shoesand are barred from discrimination only along certain lines, such as race. The case for treating people who decline COVID-19 vaccines as a protected class, alongside historically disadvantaged groups, is flimsy, especially because transmission of the virus, unlike gender or sexual orientation, is a threat to others health.

Meanwhile, some conservatives are having second thoughts about the decisions they made earlier in the pandemic. This month, Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican, said he regretted signing into a law a ban on local mask mandates. Whenever I signed that law, our cases were low, we were hoping that the whole thing was gone, in terms of the virus, but it roared back with the Delta variant, Hutchinson said. The governor and Republican legislators ignored a core principle of conservative political philosophy: to beware of changes to government that might have unforeseen consequences.

Hutchinson publicly pleaded for courts to invalidate the law. In early August, he got his wish when a judge blocked enforcement of the mask ban, saying it infringed on the rights of the governor, local health officials, and the state supreme court. If conservatives have to depend on the courts to restrain their own hands from unwise government impositions, what claim do they have on being conservatives?

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The Big-Government-Conservative War on Masks - The Atlantic