The Texas Attorney General has followed through on his threat to sue the City of Austin and Travis County for not letting go of their local covid codes.
Austin’s Mayor Steve Alder says he too is keeping his promise, by continuing to be guided by health officials and the data, which is why he intends to fight the Governor’s reversal of covid codes and the Texas AG.
Mayor Adler says this isn’t the first time the state and city have legally grappled over how to handle covid orders, recalling what happened this last New Years Eve. “On New Year’s Eve we were trying to enforce emergency orders that I had entered, and the Governor took the argument that his emergency order could trump mine. That is currently in the courts to be decided.”
Adler says this time is different because its not his order vs the Governor, but the Governor versus the Austin Travis County Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott’s orders. “The city has an ordinance and has had the ordinance since last summer that enable us to make the rules of the health authority enforceable as a matter of law. When we did that last summer, the Governor wrote me a letter in support of what we were doing.”
Mayor Adler says the Texas AG Ken Paxton argues the Governor’s order removes from local health authority’s the ability to require folks to wear masks. He hopes Paxton is wrong, “We can’t find anytime in Texas history where a state leader has successfully stopped a local health authority from being able to protect the local community.”
While the legal system handles this new case, Adler says the city will continue to focus on Covid vaccination and reminding folks that masking and social distancing works.
