A federal judge on Tuesday denied Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf's motion to stay the court's ruling that some of the governor's COVID-19 orders at the beginning of the pandemic were unconstitutional.
In his denial, Judge William Stickman said that the large number of protests across the state and large-scale events like the Carlisle Car Show in Cumberland County that were allowed to go on despite the state's restrictions on large public gatherings were reasons why the motion to stay was denied.
In a ruling last week, Stickman sided with a group of plaintiffs that included hair salons, drive-in movie theaters, a farmer's market vendor, a horse trainer and several Republican officeholders in their lawsuit against Wolf.
The Wolf administration's pandemic policies have been overreaching and arbitrary and violated citizens' constitutional rights, Stickman wrote in his ruling.
The governor's efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus "were undertaken with the good intention of addressing a public health emergency. But even in an emergency, the authority of government is not unfettered," Stickman wrote. "The Constitution cannot accept the concept of a 'new normal' where the basic liberties of the people can be subordinated to open-ended emergency mitigation measures."
In a sharp response to the ruling last week, Wolf said he believed the majority of Pennsylvanians understood the reasoning behind the state's emergency declarations and the restrictions it placed on large gatherings.
He accused President Donald Trump and Republicans who control the state legislature of promoting conspiracy theories and spreading misinformation about the virus and the status of the Pennsylvania economy, which he said is reopened despite the mitigation measures he has imposed.
“I believe the vast majority of Pennsylvanians understand what we had to do in the beginning was necessary to buy the time to keep people safe before we got the capacity we needed to address this virus," Wolf said. "And the vast majority simply don’t buy into the conspiracy theories or fear-mongering from the president or from the Harrisburg Republicans about this virus.”
The governor's official comment on the latest ruling:
"The administration is disappointed with the decision and is filing an appeal. The actions taken by the administration were mirrored by governors across the country and saved, and continue to save lives in the absence of federal action. This decision is especially worrying as Pennsylvania and the rest of the country are likely to face a challenging time with the possible resurgence of COVID-19 and the flu in the fall and winter."
