Georgian Mask-off: Gov Brian Kemp sues Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms over mandatory masks as cases surge
Party politics was at its worst again in the US, this time in the state of Georgia where the Republican Governor Brian Kemp sued the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, alleging that the Democrat overstepped her authority in matters of Covid-19-related rules. The Peach State’s attorney general, Chris Carr, also a GOP member, joined Kemp in filing the lawsuit in the state court on Thursday, July 16.
Kemp took on Bottoms, who is in the run to become the Democratic vice-presidential candidate for this year’s election, for enforcing coronavirus-related rules like making it mandatory to wear face coverings in the public. According to the lawsuit, Bottoms did not have the authority to implement a mask requirement and that must abide by the governor’s executive orders, including the one that was signed on Wednesday, July 15, banning the municipalities from making their own face-covering rules.
“Governor Kemp must be allowed, as the chief executive of this state, to manage the public health emergency without Mayor Bottoms issuing void and unenforceable orders which only serve to confuse the public,” the lawsuit says, Associated Press reported.
The governor’s lawsuit urged the court to overrule Bottoms’ July 10 order which asks Atlanta to return to the first phase of reopening, requiring people to return to their residences and restaurants shut their businesses. Kemp’s latest executive order wants to negate the current mask mandates in more than a dozen cities or counties besides extending social distancing restrictions throughout the state.
Kemp also included past disputes with Bottoms in lawsuit
In suing Bottoms, Kemp also took into consideration a previous dispute with the former over-policing in Atlanta with coronavirus control. He said he made the legal move to protect business owners and employees just like he called out the National Guard last week to shield the state office buildings and the governor’s mansion after an eight-year-old girl was shot dead on July 4 by armed men at a site where a white Atlanta cop shot Rayshard Brooks -- an incident that led to widespread violence. The governor also accused Bottoms of forbidding the police from enforcing his earlier orders against assembly of more than 50 people.
Kemp, who is known to be an admirer of President Donald Trump and has followed policies like him during his gubernatorial campaign before taking office last year, had tried to ban cities and counties from passing any coronavirus restrictions but many cities defied him by making masks mandatory. Georgia has so far seen over 3,000 deaths in the pandemic and Kemp’s anti-mask order came on the same day the state registered its second-highest number of cases since the outbreak, logging more than 3,800 cases and nearly 40 deaths. The US is the worst-affected nation with more than 3.5 million getting affected and over 138,000 dead.
Bottoms little moved by the legal move
Bottoms was also at her stubborn best as she said in an online news conference before the governor’s legal step that his order would not bar Atlanta from going forward with the mask ordinance. “I am not afraid of the city being sued, and I’ll put our policies up against anyone’s, any day of the week,” Bottoms, 50, said.
“As of today, 3,104 Georgians have died and I and my family are amongst the 106,000 who have tested positive for COVID-19,” Bottoms said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed. “A better use of taxpayer money would be to expand testing and contact tracing. If being sued by the state is what it takes to save lives in Atlanta, then we will see them in court.” The mayor herself also tested positive recently.
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, also a Democrat and a Black individual like Bottoms, also spoke out against Kemp’s legal attempts to thwart the mask mandate. The first local official to make the mask rule, Johnson said on Twitter: “It is officially official. Governor Kemp does not give a damn about us. Every man and woman for himself/herself. Ignore the science and survive the best you can. In #Savannah, we will continue to keep the faith and follow the science. Masks will continue to be available!”
While a number of other Republican governors also opposed the mask mandate previously but changed their stance later, Kemp remained obdurate which prompted Stacey Abrams, his 2018 challenger in the governor’s election, to say on MSNBC that the governor of Georgia “continues to fiddle while Rome burns”.