School Mask Mandate Before PA Supreme Court: Latest Updates

PENNSYLVANIA — The school mask mandate was heard before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday, as one of the most controversial and longest-running issues of the pandemic came to a head.

While the politics surrounding Gov. Tom Wolf's COVID-19 response and mitigation measures have made school masking a point of deep division and contention in Harrisburg, Wednesday's hearing reportedly focused on just one thing: What authority is granted to Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam under Pennsylvania law?

Lawyers for the state argued that a provision in the law equates the mask mandate with a "modified quarantine" — a measure which the state is allowed to impose to limit the spread of a communicable disease.

“How does that regulation trump the fundamental right of a parent to determine what is best for their child?” Justice Kevin M. Dougherty asked, according to a PennLive courtroom report.

Some individual rights “end at your neighbor’s nose" during a pandemic, Deputy Attorney General Sean A. Kirkpatrick argued, The Associated Press reports.

The mandate's future has been consistently murky for weeks now, ever since the Commonwealth Court ruled that it was illegal weeks ago. Initially, Wolf's administration filed this appeal, which stayed the ruling. Republican leadership then managed to have that stay lifted, and the mandate was set to be lifted on Dec. 4. The Supreme Court then reversed that decision, saying that the ruling can, in fact, be stayed until they have the chance to hear the case.

The Commonwealth Court said that the order was illegal because a public health emergency was no longer in place at the time, and because Beam did not follow the necessary procedural steps leading up to the order.

Under intense pressure from GOP leaders in recent months, the governor's administration has maintained that the order was constitutional.

"The Secretary of Health's authority is clearly outlined in existing law," a spokesperson for Gov. Wolf's office told Patch.

"The law could not be clearer in this case," Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman and state Rep. Jesse Topper said in a joint statement following the Commonwealth Court's ruling. "The Acting Secretary does not have the authority to issue blanket mandates unilaterally. These decisions belong in the hands of parents and school boards, and we will not stop fighting until that power is returned to them."

The debate is part of a larger battle that has played out during the pandemic over the extent of the governor's executive and emergency powers and his ability to act unilaterally and without the approval of the state legislature.

Citing the wide availability of pediatric vaccines, Wolf said he would return local control of the masking mandate back to local districts on Jan. 17, 2022. Masks would remain a requirement in child care centers and early learning programs, should his mandate be affirmed as legal.