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An Arizona judge ruled that the prohibition of mask mandates to prevent the spread of COVID – 19 in public schools , as well as various other laws included in the state budget by Republican state legislators, are unconstitutional, per NPR.
The ruling frees public school leaders on all Arizona to require that students, staff, and visitors wear face masks in the campus.
The law that prohibits the requirement of masks in schools was scheduled to go into effect on Wednesday.
The judge also annulled a series of other policies adopted as part of the budget state , including prohibition vaccine requirements for public universities, community colleges, and local governments, anti-fraud measures for ballots, and a ban on teaching critical race theory in public schools.
All of this, wrote Maricopa County Superior Court Judge, Katherine Cooper, is unconstitutional and unenforceable.
“The issue here is not what the Legislature decided, but how it decided what it did,” wrote Coper.
Cooper cited two rules from the Arizona Constitution to support his decision.
One of those rules states that a bill can only address one thing, or only one issue, at a time. When it comes to budgeting, the issue is clearly supposed to be how to spend taxpayer dollars, Cooper wrote.
And another constitutional rule of that state requires that bills be given a title that accurately reflects the content of the bill.
The case is likely to go to the Arizona Supreme Court
For now, Cooper’s ruling is a victory for a coalition of educational and civic groups, led by the Association of School Boards of Arizona .
Attorney Roopali Desai, who argued the case on his behalf , called the ruling “huge”, with far-reaching implications for children’s health , as well as future budgeting practices, as per azcentral.com.
Democrats in the Assembly of Arizona said the ruling indicates that lawmakers should stop the ‘roll of record’ process consisting of adding items to a bill to get enough support to your approval.
And they applauded Cooper for reminding Republicans to uphold the Constitution.
Governor Ducey promised to challenge it
The governor’s office Doug Ducey called the ruling “judicial overreach” and added that the judge should not be involved in the law-making process.
“Unfortunately, today’s decision is the result of a dishonest judge interfering with the authority and processes of another branch of government”, said spokesperson CJ Karamargin in a statement.
The ruling could have consequences for the incentives Ducey promoted last month to encourage schools not to impose mask and vaccine requirements. The governor offered $ 1, 800 dollars per student to districts that did not have requirements of face masks at the beginning of the school year, as well as coupons up to $ 7, 000 dollars for parents who want to remove their children from school districts with mask mandates.