Change The Facts, Change The Outcome

In Texas, it’s getting harder and harder for children’s hospitals to meet the demand for beds. Physicians fear what will happen when schools reopen, with far fewer children masked and far more attending in person than last year. https://t.co/8Et6fytjaP

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) August 14, 2021

This is not the pandemic of 2020 and spring of 2021:

Late Friday night, Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a tweet that he has taken the mask mandate fight to the state Supreme Court.

This comes after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott suffered several defeats Friday afternoon in his bid to overturn local mask mandates after he banned such precautions earlier in the pandemic.

The 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio tossed out Abbott’s appeal to nix an order by the local health authority in Bexar County mandating mask-wearing in local public schools. Abbott sought to overturn a lower court ruling that allowed the local mandate.

Minutes later, the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas made an identical ruling in Abbott’s challenge to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins’ order mandating masks in public schools, universities and businesses — upholding the mandate there.

Over the past few days, a patchwork of mandates around masks in schools, government buildings and businesses have popped up across the state. Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have vowed to fight local governments that defy the governor's ban. Abbott has adopted a playbook of “personal responsibility” over government intervention in dealing with the pandemic.

I am admittedly too lazy to do the research on how the courts ruled on Abbott's denial of mask mandates previously, a position he retracted as the disease spread more rapidly in 2020.  But I don't think Paxton won as many court cases as he now claims he did, and besides, the fundamental rule of legal analysis (and engineering analysis, medical diagnosis, indeed any field where analysis is needed) is:  change the facts, change the outcome.

And I think refusing to allow local governments and school districts to protect their citizens, students, and employees, in the face of a raging pandemic, is a rather dramatic change of facts.  Clearly the Texas Supreme Court didn't lay down an all-encompassing rule that the 4th and 5th Courts of Appeals are simply ignoring.  And I'd be very surprised if the (elected) court decides Abbott is king and Paxton his Lord High Executioner.  Especially since Abbott is simply endangering more lives with his insistence nothing can be done by government, than he is protecting them. 

That kind of thing actually has weight in a court of law.