Lawsuit challenges statewide mask order, other proclamations in response to pandemic
A lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Gov. Jay Inslee’s statewide mask order and other actions in response to the pandemic was filed in Thurston County Superior Court recently.
Franklin County Commissioner Clint Didier, tax activist Tim Eyman and others filed the lawsuit against Inslee and Secretary of Health John Wiesman. Lisa Thomas, Dean Wellsfry and S. Rowan Wilson are also listed as plaintiffs in the complaint.
The lawsuit asks the court to find that the governor and Secretary of Health exceeded their constitutional authority with various proclamations, including the statewide mask order.
It alleges the governor’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy order and subsequent proclamations, including the Safe Start plan and statewide mask order, violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights.
The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction, prohibiting further enforcement of the proclamations.
When he announced the mask order last week, Inlsee said he anticipated broad compliance.
“We don’t want to have enforcement of this,” he said. “Ideally there won’t be any criminal or civil sanctions for individuals.”
Inslee was asked at a Tri-Cities press conference this week what he had to say to people who argue their constitutional rights are violated by being ordered to wear a mask.
“Well I don’t think General Jim Mattis, (Vice President) Mike Pence, Congressman Dan Newhouse, many doctors, police chiefs, all the mayors and county commissioners that I met with this morning would be saying: ‘let’s go violate the constitution,” the governor responded.
“Look, this is a pandemic,” Inslee continued. “It is killing people, and we have a community response. And only a community response can be successful, so we have to act together, and that’s what we’re doing.”
He noted that 160,000 people were already wearing masks in the Tri-Cities, and said he was confident that number will grow.
“This is simply a response to a very, very deadly disease, and there’s nothing in the constitution that says we should surrender our loved ones to a virus,” the governor said. “There’s just nothing that says that. ... No court has said any of these things are unconstitutional or illegal. They just have not.”
Inslee said at another press conference Thursday that multiple lawsuits have tried to block all or part of the Stay Home order in state and federal court.
“Not one (injunction) has been granted,” he said.
Some court rulings, he said, have described the lawsuits as “frivolous,” “unpersuasive,” and “completely devoid of merit.”
This story was originally published July 5, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
