“A pandemic does not suspend the rule of law”
December 21, 2020 | By Katy Grimes | Source
“It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues and mosques,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch recently wrote, overturning New York’s church closure restrictions.
With a recent court win over Los Angeles County regarding the outdoor dining ban, California attorneys Mark Geragos, Harmeet Dhillon, Mark Meuser, Alexandra Kazerian, and Matthew Hoesly,filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Gov. Gavin Newsom, representing Los Angeles restaurant owner Angela Marsden who made the recent tearful, now-viral video as she was forced to close down her restaurant, Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grille. She was forced to close down even her outdoor dining, while a Hollywood film production was allowed to provide the same outdoor dining across the shared parking lot. The message: Hollywood “essential” and necessary, Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grille, not.
This is the 17th lawsuit against the governor by the Dhillon Law Group since he ordered the state locked down for COVID-19 in March.
The lawsuit opens up with the Great Barrington Declaration, which the Globe has reported on extensively:
Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health- leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden.
…. The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.
…. Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal…
~The Great Barrington Declaration – signed by over 51,970 medical and public health scientists and medical practitioners from around the world and across political ideologies.
This is yet another powerful lawsuit accusing Gov. Gavin Newsom of grossly abusing his emergency powers. Also named as defendants are California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Acting State Public Health Officer for the California Department of Public Health Erica S. Pan M.D., M.P.H., State of California—Health and Human Services Agency.
“Defendants, in a gross abuse of their power, have seized the Coronavirus pandemic to expand their authority by unprecedented lengths, depriving Plaintiff and all other similarly situated small business owners in California of fundamental rights protected by the U.S. and California Constitutions, including freedom assembly and due process and equal protection under the law,” the lawsuit states. “It is this Court’s duty to defend these constitutional principles by safeguarding the many rights and liberties of Californians such as Plaintiff that Defendants so brazenly, arbitrarily and capriciously violate.”