Gov. DeSantis’ notice of appeal of student mask decision triggers immediate stay
Time to move on? Democrats are focusing on keeping schools open,

High school students wearing masks on their way home
A circuit judge issued his written ruling Thursday.

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran late Thursday filed a notice of appeal to Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper‘s ruling that struck down DeSantis’ executive order banning local student mask mandates in schools.

The notice, filed with the 1st District Court of Appeal, triggers an immediate, automatic stay of Cooper’s order, which would put DeSantis and Corcoran back in business punishing districts that defy the Governor’s order.

The notice offers no particular challenges of facts, procedures, or legal conclusions found in Cooper’s 25-page written ruling filed earlier Thursday. The written order followed the decision the judge had offered orally in court last Friday, when he sided with parents who sued to overturn DeSantis’ ban on student mask mandates.

The three-page notice — with essentially just one page of argument, most of it boilerplate — simply stipulates that under Florida’s court jurisdiction rules, District Courts of Appeal “upon appeal, shall review all final orders of trial courts not directly reviewable by the supreme court or a circuit court, including county court final orders declaring invalid a state statute or provision of the state constitution.”

Cooper’s written decision did not explicitly invalidate any statutes or provisions in the Florida Constitution. Cooper wrote that the state ignored the full intent in the Parents’ Bill of Rights law the Legislature approved, and DeSantis signed, last spring.

The automatic stay sought by DeSantis and Corcoran would give them a resumption of legal authority to continue to act under his executive order.

DeSantis and Corcoran had acted earlier in the week, despite Cooper’s oral decision last week, when they announced state money would be withheld from Broward and Alachua counties’ school districts because those districts had implemented student mask mandates, in violation of DeSantis’ executive order.

The state said it was waiting for Cooper’s written order.

A number of other school districts also have implemented mask mandates and have been threatened with similar cuts in state funding, equal to school board members’ salaries.

“If the Defendants strictly enforce the Executive Order, the Department of Health rule, or any other policy prohibiting mask mandates without a parental opt-out, then they are acting without authority and are refusing to comply with all provisions of the law,” Judge Cooper wrote, referring to the Parents’ Bill of Rights.

The legal battle comes from the lawsuit filed last month by several parents in Florida’s 2nd Judicial Circuit in Leon County.

The suing parents’ attorneys argued DeSantis “wrongfully assumes that state authorities can better determine the local health risks and educational needs of students and teachers.”

But the state’s lawyers stood by DeSantis’ assertion that a parent’s right to opt their children from mask mandates falls within the Parents’ Bill of Rights he signed into law in June, providing parents freedom from the state and public schools in how they raise their children, including regarding health matters.

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Florida Politics reporter Renzo Downey contributed to this report.

Scott Powers

Scott Powers is an Orlando-based political journalist with 30+ years’ experience, mostly at newspapers such as the Orlando Sentinel and the Columbus Dispatch. He covers local, state and federal politics and space news across much of Central Florida. His career earned numerous journalism awards for stories ranging from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster to presidential elections to misplaced nuclear waste. He and his wife Connie have three grown children. Besides them, he’s into mystery and suspense books and movies, rock, blues, basketball, baseball, writing unpublished novels, and being amused. Email him at [email protected].


7 comments

  • Andrew Finn

    September 3, 2021 at 9:18 am

    Of course he does. The Emperor DeSantis (soon to be promoted to the “Florida Fuhrer”) is either too stubborn or too stupid (probably both) to give in to reason now. He will plow on, wasting time and money, and taking thousands more lives with him on his road to Hell.

    • Alex

      September 3, 2021 at 11:54 am

      Florida Fuhrer tries to grant parents the right to endanger other childrens health and life.

      Next he’ll pull a Texas Taliban and allow anyone to sue the parents of a masked kid.

      It’s total insanity.

  • Richard Hoard

    September 3, 2021 at 11:52 am

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  • Andre

    September 3, 2021 at 8:42 pm

    Terminate the Rogue Lawless Officials without Pay and END this immediately. Texas dealt with the same thing lawless districts and threatened terminations and jail time with San Antonio ISD and they magically fell in line and removed the illegal mandates. Ron has played nice too long with this local trash. The time for being “nice” is over with.

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