My view: Florida judge Kathryn Mizelle does understand law - Portland Tribune

Shockingly, one politically motivated judge has more sway over public health than do physicians and the CDC.

Earlier this month, a Federalist Society Federal Judge in Florida named Kathryn Mizelle decided that the federal mask mandate in public transit was unlawful, and terminated it.

Many of the patients in my pediatric clinic have understood this to mean that masks are no longer necessary on planes, buses and trains. My short response to them is that this was a legal ruling by a judge, not a change in public health recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which still recommends masking on public transportation to reduce COVID transmission.

Perhaps the more important point, though, is that this ruling is part of a long history of the U.S. judiciary branch using the perceived objectivity of the law to enact politically motivated public policy, almost exclusively to the detriment of public health and civil liberties.

Mizelle claimed that the CDC was exceeding its authority in mandating masks, and goes on for several pages of performative legal formalism justifying the claim that the statute that says, "the CDC … is authorized to make and enforce such regulations as … are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases," does not allow it to require wearing masks.

Judges like Mizell want us to believe that the law represents some sort of objective truth that judges merely divine through interpretation. That's why much of the discussion about this ruling has focused on whether or not Mizelle's legal arguments are accurate, and why. This type of thinking is what led some "legal experts" to claim that Mizelle does not understand public health law.

The reality, though, is that laws have no meaning or power beyond what the courts give them. Judges use the contrivances of "textualism" and "originalism" to give a façade of objectivity and legitimacy to their rulings, but a closer look quickly reveals that the only consistency in judicial rulings, especially from Federalist Society judges like Mizelle, is ideology.

Supreme Court Justices have used these meaningless frameworks to argue that holding signs saying "bong hits for Jesus" is not protected speech under the First Amendment, but billions of dollars of corporate spending to buy political elections is. The same legislators who are supporting Mizelle's decision as a "pushback against government overreach" have spent the last year passing some of the most overreaching regulations in decades, including measures restricting access to health care and dismantling the right to vote, and Florida's own "Don't Say Gay" bill that restricts discussion of gender identity in schools.

Many will argue that this is an issue of federal versus state power, or the difference between legislation passed by elected officials and regulations enforced by the administrative state (i.e. departments of the executive branch like the CDC). But this is only more distraction designed to obscure the fact that the judiciary branch is a political branch of government that is becoming increasingly dominated by Federalist Society judges advancing the conservative legal movement's agenda.

The law is a malleable tool used to shape society, and Federalist Society judges like Mizelle understand this perfectly, and are using it ruthlessly to enforce their own agendas, to the detriment of American civil liberties. We should all be concerned that a judge in Florida who has no knowledge or experience in infectious disease or public has more influence over the public health policies designed to keep us safe than the doctors and public health experts at the CDC.

Dr. Ryan Hassan is a pediatrician practicing in Clackamas County.

source: https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/10-opinion/544266-435717-my-view-florida-judge-kathryn-mizelle-does-understand-law-

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