This story has been updated.
A federal judge on Thursday sided with a group of parents of students at St. Joseph Catholic School in Cold Spring temporarily blocking Governor Andy Beshear’s executive order mandating that face masks be worn inside all Kentucky schools and facilities.
According to the Herald-Leader, the parents’ Covington-based attorney Brandon Voelker “said it is uncertain if the ruling affects private school students across the state.”
Beshear issued the mask mandate last week amid rising COVID-19 cases in the state, including in children.
The order applied to all schools, public and private.
However, U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman on Thursday said in his ruling, “The Executive Branch cannot simply ignore laws passed by the duly elected representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky of Kentucky. Therein lies tyranny. If the citizens dislike the laws passed, the remedy lies with them, at the polls.”
According to the Herald-Leader, Beshear spokeswoman Crystal Staley said the ruling by U.S. District Judge William O. Bertelsman of Covington “could place thousands of Kentucky children at risk and undoubtedly expose them to the most dangerous version of COVID-19 we have ever seen.”
Beshear issued his order on August 10 after the Diocese of Covington had determined that face masks would be optional for students at its 33 schools. When the order was announced, the diocese told families that masks were then required.
The plaintiffs originally filed their complaint at Campbell Circuit Court before the governor asked that it be moved to the federal court system.
According to the Courier-Journal, both parties in the case asked that the ruling be narrowed to just schools in the Diocese of Covington. That has not yet happened.
However, following Beshear’s executive order, the Kentucky Board of Education voted to require masks in all public schools and facilities. That order is still in effect, reports indicate.
The Kentucky Supreme Court is next to consider the governor’s executive orders which were challenged by the General Assembly through legislation earlier this year. The Courier-Journal characterized it as “multiple, conflicting legal challenges facing the Kentucky Supreme Court” as it relates to Beshear’s executive authority.
“The case is in fed court based on fed question jurisdiction, or that the claims involve the U.S. Const/federal law,” University of Kentucky law professor Joshua Douglas tweeted about Bertelsman’s Thursday ruling. “But the court said literally nothing about fed. issues. He just claimed the order violates state law, with almost no analysis. It’s a brazen judicial overreach.”
The full ruling from Berterlsman, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter in 1979, can be read here.
Also on Thursday, Beshear announced 4,836 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky, the state’s third-highest single-day number of cases since the pandemic began.
-Staff report