AG Challenges Unlawful Actions of Governor

To Hon. John Bel Edwards

Dear Governor Edwards,

Shortly after we – at great cost to our economy and personal freedoms – “flattened the curve,” you surprisingly applauded extraordinarily large groups of people who were gathering in violation of practically every order you had issued to contain the virus – orders which emphasized social distancing.

While you could have applauded people exercising their Constitutional right to the freedom of speech while at the same time chastised attendees for failing to protect people from the spread of the virus, you did only the former and none of the latter.

Now, you… further impede the Constitutional freedoms of all Louisianans (masking order) without any concrete goal or objective based on published metrics.

The concern, under the law, is that you have seemed to pick and choose who receives the brunt of your executive authority. In place of a thoughtful use of your authority, you have decided to punish everyone not marching in the streets or destroying statues.

Now, you have placed our job creators in the crosshairs. Your mandates seek to put the burden on them to enforce your rules. State immunity does not protect our job creators from federal civil rights claims or the myriad of other federal liabilities they may face in executing your edicts. It is simply wrong and beyond your authority.

Many citizens of Louisiana have reached out to our office with serious concerns over your decision-making on these issues. Their concerns, and my concerns, with your (mask) mandate are not that it attempts to improve the situation we face with COVID-19; rather, it is that it does so in a manner that is destructive to the economy of our State and the livelihood of our citizens. Thousands of small businesspeople could lose their entire life’s work because of your indiscriminate actions.

Things have changed. We now know the severity of this disease and how it is nowhere in the ballpark of predictions made in March, not only because of our previous actions but because the scientific data indicates this to be the case. Like you, I trusted the data and models generated in March. But since then, they have been proven to be wrong on a scale of grand magnitude. Therefore, our response needs to change by the same degree of magnitude. By the same token, your extraordinary powers need to change by the same degree of magnitude.

Unlike you, I have faith in the people of Louisiana. I think they are fully capable of making decisions and assuming risks associated with daily life. Driving to work every day is probably the most dangerous thing we do day-in-and-day-out, yet we do it routinely. We have chosen to exercise our right to assume that risk and make our livings. You are acting beyond your authority. For Louisiana,

Attorney General Jeff Landry