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Posted on 09/14/2020 1:12:06 PM PDT by lightman
House Republican legislative leaders say “a return to normalcy might be on the horizon” after reviewing U.S. Western District Judge William Stickman IV’s ruling that found Gov. Tom Wolf’s restrictions imposed to control the spread of COVID-19 to be unconstitutional.
In a ruling issued on Monday, the federal judge ruled Gov. Tom Wolf’s and Health Secretary Rachel Levine’s congregate gathering, stay-at-home and business shutdown orders violated the First and Fourteenth amendments.
In their reaction, House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, and House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre County, cited an excerpt from the judge’s opinion that highlight that a response to a pandemic "cannot be permitted to undermine our system of constitutional liberties or the system of checks and balances protecting those liberties.”
The leaders said in their statement, “For the millions of unemployed Pennsylvanians, the thousands of small business owners that have seen their livelihoods permanently ended, and all those looking for some relief from these unilaterally imposed, inconsistent and contradictory shutdown orders, this opinion offers some form of hope that a return to normalcy might be on the horizon.”
They continued:
"Judge Stickman’s opinion confirms what Pennsylvania Republicans have been saying all along: The Wolf administration’s use of emergency authority is unconstitutionally overbroad. Given the nature of this opinion, we hope that Gov. Wolf will finally work with the General Assembly to develop a plan that keeps people safe, does not unconstitutionally penalize Pennsylvanians, and takes into account our geographical differences.”
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C’mon. You guys know better than that.
Do your jobs. You can’t dump this on the judiciary and expect that appeals courts will do the right thing.
Since this is a Federal Judge’s ruling, does it apply to the rest of the country too?
Fauci can go fornicate himself.
Tommie The Commie’s going to tie this up in the appeals courts, for a long time.
I am not a lawyer, but I don’t think that it will apply to the rest of the country. District court decisions should apply only to the district in question.
One of the issues with the Federal district courts has been that some of them have issued nation-wide injunctions against the present administration (think of the incorrectly-named Muslim travel ban, which didn’t ban travel from the largest Muslim countries and did ban travel from that well-known Muslim country Venezuela). A district judge should not be able to issue a nationwide injunction.
In this case, it seems to me that the district judge found actions of the Wolf Administration to be unconstitutional. That’s pretty specific. Now, the reasoning of his decision could be cited in other cases for different states.
I suppose, but wouldn’t the ruling stand as is until reviewed? Would and injunction be issued?
Common sense and the Rule of law survives this imbecile.
I hope they copied Cooper on this ruling.
Everyone knows that the pandemic will end in December, contingent on Joe Biden’s victory. Otherwise it will somehow continue indefinitely. The science is clear on this. /s
This is about the only way the states’ dictators are going to restore the “Constitutionally protected” freedoms Americans enjoyed a half year ago. Too many of these tyrants are thoroughly enjoying their self-anointed vast powers and the control over 300,000,000 people.
Yep
Unlike Roe v Wade. It also was filed in federal court and went all the way to SCOTUS/
“Return to normalcy” would mean Antifa and other terrorists in bodybags.
Beats me. I would think that the original statute would stand until the reversal ruling is reviewed.
But I’m not a constitutional atty, don’t play one on TV or radio, nor did I sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Ping!
There is no statute involved. These are edicts and decrees coming from the Governor’s Office. Some of the health department stuff if allegedly based on a 1955 statute that was passed to fight a syphilis outbreak. The Legislature offered to work with Wolf on legislation but he refused, preferring the dictator route.
There are many aspects of Wolf/Levine’s orders that are toothless tigers.
They’ve basically said there is to be no law enforcement action on people who—like me—who refuse to wear face diapers.
State-licensed business can get in trouble (particularly alcohol establishments) if they don’t post signage but even they aren’t supposed to get in your face (LOL) about masks or lack thereof.
Relgious services are specifically EXcluded from indoor/outdoor gathering limits, but you’d never know that judging from the Obituaries. Of course, Funeral Directors are state-licensed so the feel they need to play extra safe.
And then there are a slew of county DA’s who have gone on record that they absolutely will not prosecute anything lockdown/restriction/face mask related.
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