Texas Mask Mandate Lawsuit Attorney Welcomes Florida Judge Striking Mandate in Separate Suit, but Says: ‘Our Case Will Continue’

The executive director and general counsel of the Texas Public Policy Foundation told The Star News Network he welcomed Monday’s ruling in Florida by federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for public transportation and air travel.

“The arguments that are pending in our ongoing lawsuit in Texas are the same arguments that prevailed in the case in Florida with a judge in Florida agreeing that the Centers for Disease Control did not have the statutory authority that it claimed to impose a face-covering requirement for all Americans engaging in transportation,” said Robert Henneke, who represents both the foundation and Texas Republican Rep. Beth Van Duyne in an independent lawsuit challenging both the CDC’s mask mandate and the Transportation Safety Administration’s derivative mandate that relies on the CDC’s now-overturned authority.

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Lawsuit Demands Court Ends Biden’s ‘Unlawful’ and ‘Unconstitutional’ COVID-19 Airplane, Public Transit Mask Mandates

The general counsel of the Texas Public Policy Foundation told The Star News Network the legal theory behind the federal lawsuit filed by the foundation Wednesday on behalf of Representative Elizabeth Ann “Beth” Van Duyne and Texas Attorney General W. Kenneth Paxton petitions the court to strike down the Centers of Disease Control mask mandate on airplanes and public transit as unlawful and unconstitutional mitigation for the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Well, the basis is twofold,” said Robert Henneke, who is also the foundation’s executive director.

“First of all, there is no statutory authority for the Centers for Disease Control to command that all Americans have to wear a face mask covering when they travel,” Henneke said.

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Lawyer in Historic Vaccine Mandate Challenge Warns Larger Constitutional Issues Remain Unresolved

One of the lawyers in the historic U.S. Supreme Court case that blocked the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate on private business is warning it is only a preliminary victory and the larger constitutional issues about government-compelled inoculations must still be litigated.

“In some ways, yesterday was a win of a major battle, but still leaves the war to be fought,” said Robert Henneke, executive director and general counsel at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which filed one of the original challenges in Texas against the vaccine mandate that was eventually consolidated before the Supreme Court.

“While it got to the right outcome for declaring the private employer vax mandate unlawful, it kind of misses the forest for the trees because it leaves these broader questions of federal power unresolved,” he told the John Solomon Reports podcast.

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