AG Ken Paxton warns Austin and Travis County to drop mask lawsuit or be sued

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has threatened to sue Travis County and the city of Austin if officials do not comply with local orders that still require masks, despite Gov. Greg Abbott ending the state-wide mask mandate Wednesday.

Public health leaders in Austin and Travis County recently announced they would still need masks, although Abbott banned local authorities from replacing his order. Land judges can order COVID-19 restrictions if hospitalizations due to the virus for more consecutive days increase more than 15% of the bed capacity in that hospital region.

Violation of the city’s public health order would be a Class C misconduct, but the city planned to continue enforcing only “the worst cases,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler said in a statement. video message said late Tuesday before Paxton’s announcement.

‘The decision to require masks or otherwise set up COVID-19 operating limits is expressly reserved to private companies on their own premises. It does not rest with jurisdictions like the city of Austin or Travis County or their local health authorities, ‘Paxton wrote in a statement on Wednesday. ‘We have already taken you to court under similar circumstances. You lost. If you continue to fight the law like this, we will take you to court again and you will lose again. ”

Paxton gave local authorities until 6 p.m. to comply with the governor’s order, revoke local COVID-19 mandates and withdraw related public statements. The order said it would “replace any conflicting order issued by local officials”.

“Otherwise, on behalf of the state of Texas,” Paxton wrote, “I will sue you.”

Neither the city nor the province is trying to hide.

“I’m listening to doctors, not politicians like our attorney general,” Travis County Judge Andy Brown said in an interview, explaining that this is the message he hopes his residents will receive. “This is not the time to take off our masks.”

Brown said the continued mask mandate comes from the country’s public health authority – not from its emergency powers due to the pandemic. According to the interpretation, he says that the province must be legally able to need masks. Discussions to remove a mask mandate should only begin until 80% of the province is vaccinated, Brown said. It is currently at 9%, he said.

“We will fight the assault of Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton against doctors and data for as long as we can,” Adler said in a statement.

The Paxton office successfully challenged the efforts of Austin and Travis officials to curb New Year’s holiday restaurant operations. But Brown argued that the order remains in force during the holidays while the case is being argued, and that there has been an improvement.

Texas on Wednesday became the most populous state in the state that did not have a mask mandate, and more than half of the state required it in public. This is because on average almost 200 people die every day in the state due to COVID-19 and because new, more contagious COVID-19 variants are spreading in the state. Several leaders have criticized Abbott’s decision to end the masked mandate, including President Joe Biden, calling it a ‘big mistake’. Other lawmakers and some business owners praised the move.

Efforts to vaccinate the population continue, with experts saying that obtaining herd immunity would take nearly every adult Texan to be vaccinated. About 8.5 percent of Texas’ 29 million people have been fully vaccinated since Monday, and the state on Wednesday extended vaccine admissions to all Texans over 50. But the number of eligible recipients was already less than the supply before the expansion. , which means it can be difficult to make an appointment quickly.

While Abbott said city officials may not require the use of masks in public, businesses may require it within their premises. Dozens of businesses in Austin have announced that they need independent masks, as well as many more in the state. Some are already afraid of customer backlash.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo addressed the end of the masked mandate at a press conference on Wednesday, saying the fight against COVID-19 continues – with only about 1 in 10 provincial residents over 16 being fully vaccinated.

Hidalgo thanks business owners who still need masking in their businesses.

“We know you’ve been there from the beginning and led our people,” she said. “And no matter how unfair it is, it’s a huge public service if you carry this burden to keep the community safe.”