Last Sunday afternoon I happened to be at my home-office looking over Professor Turley’s website. He was updating his then recently posted Easter Sunday article and read the following change:
“We went to the open vaccination location but it had a three block line that barely moved with hundreds of people. We finally bailed rather than spend hours in line on Easter Sunday but hope to get the family vaccinated soon.”
I had to ponder how I might deal with the upcoming vaccination event, that I might be better served in adopting a more relaxed approach, such as how and why I avoid the rush to exit an airliner having just arrived at the gate.
Last week several parents on behalf of themselves and their minor children filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of the State of Washington seeking injunctive relief and for the Court to declare the closures unconstitutional as the governor’s proclamations violate the “paramount duty on the part of the state to make ‘ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders.”
The underlying information alleged within the lawsuit presents facts that Plaintiffs assert demonstrate that the current state of the COVID-19 virus’ threat no longer credibly constitutes an actual emergency and that the governor’s Proclamations as a result lack a foundational basis to remove children from schools. The suit further states the governor applied a wide brush to declare all Washingtonians as being at risk when the epidemiological evidence shows that the COVID-19 infection and death rate mirrors that of Influenza and Pneumonia infection rates of past years yet no public emergency was declared then. Furthermore, the illness and death rate for those less than twenty years in age is non-existent in the state and nearly everywhere else sampled. Plaintiffs proffer that the failing of the governor to limit the scope of application of the Proclamations to those actually vulnerable to the virus, the elderly and sick, infringed upon the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs and other children who have physiologically shown no significant vulnerability to the virus yet suffered the violation of their right to education resulting from an overly-broad inclusion under the declarations of state of emergency.
The complaint also mentions the sub-par nature of the education provided the minor Plaintiffs by the state, equating in one example only an hour of education and that much of what is expected is for grade school children to self-initiate and self direct their own education. One child, resides at times with a parent who has no Internet service at his residence and thus cannot facilitate an ample accomodation to meet the child’s special educational needs.
To date, three county sheriffs in Washington State broke ranks and announced they will not enforce some of Governor Inslee’s executive orders relating to his several, and increasingly frequent lockdown orders–proclaimed under the auspices of state of emergency declarations to the COVID-19 situation. The dominant subject of dissent among these law enforcement officials centers around what are regarded as unconstitutional intrusions by the governor enacted against the citizens of their respective counties and the inconsistency of regulations applied unequally by the state.
It is my belief that unless a strong reversal of Governor Inslee’s resolve to remain steadfast in his prosecution of ordinary Washingtonians is not fielded soon, the “insubordination” as he claims will only grow and serve to weaken his position, adding spark to a movement against him and his office if it continues in its present form for months.
The time has come for the governor to put his ego aside. For if he chooses to adversarily engage these sheriffs and others who will come to join them he will lose in the courts of public opinion of these various counties.
It is my analysis and view that Washington Governor Inslee’s declaration cancelling the entirety of the remaining school year under the rubric of the COVID-19 situation possibly violates the Washington State Constitution.
The state’s Supreme Court held in McCleary v. Washington that “The word “ample” in article IX, section 1 provides a broad constitutional guideline meaning fully, sufficient, and considerably more than just adequate.“
I have to wonder if our state government’s lockdown of the population, curtailment of civil liberties, destruction of job opportunities, and denial of basic medical, education, and cultural needs would have been necessary and legally justified had each of us been equipped with our own supply of masks.
At the beginning of the self-declared State of Emergency, Washington Governor Jay Inslee declared, among many other restrictions, that access to basic medical services, such as routine doctor visits, dental procedures, diagnostic services were to be prohibited, ostensibly on the fact that masks should be diverted from these services and conserved to supply hospitals and critical care centers that were lacking in preparedness and woefully out of stock. He further reiterated that because the public will spread corona virus, we were ordered to self-quaranteen, resulting in tens of thousands of job losses, an upset in daily life and the general loss of liberty.
Before the next virus crises hits, I propose we adopt a new symbol of American Freedom and Liberty–The N95 Mask–and shield ourselves from the next outbreak of panic legislation and overreach by executive and administrative power
The Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife has once again submitted to absurdity, this time by declaring that the hunting of bear and turkey presents a threat to public safety.
No, it is not that bears and their natural allies–the gobblers of Washington–have formed an alliance and threatened retaliation against suburbia if hunters invaded their lands. It is more insidious. Hunting outdoors spreads COVID-19 among the human population.
The restrictions enforced against Washingtonians are approaching absurdity. Somehow Washington State believes that fishing alone in the middle of Banks Lake will lead to worsening the COVID19 outbreak, so it banned recreational fishing. Yet going into a crowded big box store to panic-buy toilet paper and bags of flour is legal and safe.
Is there a threat that we the public are not aware. Is it that Corona Viruses from China can waft into the jet stream and drop like paratroops onto fisherman at Westport? Might it be frightfully possible that we may be swallowed whole by mutant razor clams lurking beneath the sand. What, if we may ask, is this horrorshow?
I suspect it is one of the worst kind of threat…a government agency given too much authority.
Putting aside the discussion of whether or not actions taken by various elected officials were reasonable, the hurried effects suffered by the public during the COVID-19 virus pandemic at the behest of politicians should if anything prove the potential for damage caused by unscrupulousness or incompetence in government.
Today’s events should be by now a self-evident reminder of the great importance of putting the right people in office and the folly of settling for very fallable politicians. The next coming weeks will make that point likely more for you, with less consideration to your rights or interests.
