Mask mandates win ruling; Paxton appeals

Concluding that Gov. Greg Abbott exceeded his authority by banning mask mandates in Texas, an Austin judge ruled Friday that school districts in Travis County can enforce face coverings as a COVID-19 precaution.

State District Judge Catherine Mauzy’s order also applied to 19 school districts that represent about 1 million students — including Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth and Houston — as well as Austin Community College, which also sued Abbott.

However, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton quickly appealed, automatically blocking enforcement of Mauzy’s temporary injunction — though the Austin-based

3rd Court of Appeals can be asked to reinstate the judge’s order while Paxton’s challenge proceeds.

In her ruling, Mauzy concluded Abbott’s ban on mandatory masks — contained in a July 29 executive order — was unlawful and exceeded his authority in violation of the Texas Constitution.

’A sufficient showing’

Mauzy found that the school officials and parents who challenged Abbott’s order made “a sufficient showing” to establish that Abbott was not authorized to declare “by executive fiat” that school districts are prohibited from requiring masks to be worn.

Without court intervention, Mauzy added, Abbott’s ban leaves school officials unable to mandate masks to control the spread of COVID-19, “which threatens to overwhelm public schools and could result in more extreme measures such as the school closures that have already begun in several Texas school districts.”

In a separate ruling, Mauzy also granted an injunction sought by Harris County to allow a mask mandate to continue for Houstonarea school districts, said Christian Menefee, county attorney.

But in a third challenge, the judge declined to issue a statewide injunction, requested by the Southern Center for Child Advocacy, that would have allowed mask mandates in all Texas school districts. Mauzy’s onepage order gave no reason.

Abbott has argued that Texans, well-versed in taking protective steps during a long pandemic, should be trusted with making their own decisions, not have behavior dictated by government.

Defying the governor

But officials in numerous school districts across Texas have defied the governor’s order, arguing that the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus is threatening to overwhelm hospitals with pediatric patients in numbers not seen during previous spikes in the pandemic.

For a virus transmitted by respiratory droplets, masks protect infected wearers from spreading COVID-19 and can capture droplets before they can be inhaled by healthy students, health experts testified at hearings before Mauzy earlier this week.

Masks also offer the best form of protection for students under age 12 who are not eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations but are being asked to congregate in classrooms, hallways and lunchrooms where social distancing is not always possible, the experts testified.

Lawyers for Paxton argued that the governor’s emergency authority gives Abbott’s executive order the “force and effect” of a state law during the pandemic.

They also said Abbott is allowed to take other factors into account, such as economic recovery, when issuing pandemic safety orders.