Editorial: May 1, 2020

RIVERSIDE: Riverside County Public Health Officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser announced on Wednesday, April 29 he is extending a previous order requiring residents to wear face coverings when outside through June 19. The county order is not in line with the CDC or the Trump Administration which only “recommends” that non-surgical face masks be worn in public.

County Supervisors on Thursday pushed back against Dr. Kaiser and scheduled a meeting to rescind all local public health orders in an item that will go before the board on Tuesday, May 5. Board Chair V. Manuel Perez, Fourth District Supervisor and Vice Chair Karen Spiegel, Second District placed the item to be heard. Across the state protests are taking place, civil disobedience is growing and patience is running out. Supervisors are concerned with collateral damage to the public health, and the economy. The agenda item recommends the rescission of the closures of schools, ending limitations on short term lodging, removing restrictions on golf course use, and eliminating the requirement to wear face coverings and engage in social distancing. Constitutional Attorney Mark Meuser with the Dhillon Law Group, who has filed seven lawsuits against Governor Gavin Newsom in April, delved into legal concerns with mandated face masks. Meuser held a live Facebook chat earlier in April discussing face mask mandates, constitutional rights, unfunded mandates, the Preemption Doctrine and the Overbreadth Doctrine.

The full video from Mark Meuser can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0byfR_UJWzM&feature=share

Meuser said he is not getting into the medical science issues of masks, but only addressing the legal aspects. The order to wear a mask, said Meuser is because of safety, “But we haven't banned sugar, we haven't banned smoking, drinking, we tried that once. We once made drinking unconstitutional and that didn't really work out well for this country. We created an underground economy.”

“I have a big concern regulating masks because we are increasing police power, increasing the consequences that happen, that then increase crime.” Meuser said there are times when blanket laws make sense, like speed limits on a highway or how many hours a truck driver can drive in a day.

“As an attorney I have to ask when is it unconstitutional, when has a government official gone too far,” asked Meuser referring to Dr. Kaiser. Meuser discussed unfunded mandates, “Is the government mandating we go out and buy a mask? The government does mandate that we buy health and car insurance. But the health insurance issue is still being debated in the Supreme Court.“

Meuser then moved onto what is called the Preemption Doctrine, an idea that a higher authority of law will displace the law of a lower authority of law when the two authorities come into conflict.

“We don't have a local emergency, we have a state of emergency,” said Meuser. “The county health officials created localized rules. They don't use the state of emergency to pass local rules.“

“We have this Doctrine Of Preemption, during the AIDS epidemic one of the counties went to the State of California Attorney General and said we are thinking of calling a local emergency to give free, clean needles to fight the AIDS epidemic. The attorney general came back and said “Under the Doctrine of Preemption the State of California already declared a state of emergency. You don't have the authority to come and declare your own local state of emergency to now pass regulations that are contrary to state law. The Doctrine of Preemption may be a good legal argument on why the County of Riverside does not have the authority to mandate we wear a mask 24 hours a day seven days a week whether we are home alone or in a crowd. That is a serious problem I see here,” said Meuser.

Meuser said an argument against the Doctrine of Preemption could be using the riots around Rodney King. These riots created a state of emergency. The National Guard was called in and every city was passing their own curfew laws.

“A lawsuit was brought for the individual cities to have their own unique curfew laws,” said Meuser. “The courts found that in that case that since local police were enforcing local rules that each city could have their own curfew laws and the Doctrine of Preemption was not valid.“

 Meuser said he leans more towards the Preemption Doctrine, “We don't need 58 set of laws in California. We don't need 58 county health officials who are unelected, that no one knew even existed until a month ago to pass laws that are contrary and we don't even know the true health benefits.”

Finally Meuser discussed the aspect of orders being too broad, “This statute has no exemptions no cut out. It’s flat. It simply says if you are a person in Riverside County you must wear a mask.“  The problem with this Meuser stated, is with a law being too broad is it can affect your right to privacy, your first amendment rights to free speech, to protest because it is so explicit no exemptions.

“This is a major problem with over-breadth,” said Meuser. “Governments have the power to regulate in the name of safety. The question becomes can a local health official when dealing with a statewide, nationwide worldwide pandemic, can a local unelected health official really have the authority to mandate using the police power allowing the police to arrest you ..do they really have that power?”

Meuser said, “Under the Preemption Doctrine they do not. Under the Doctrine of Overbreadth they do not, they do not have the authority this is not a local emergency. As such you can not have 4,000 public health officials dictating national policy.“

Meuser encourages citizens of Riverside County to tell their county supervisors they don't want Dr. Kaiser to tell them they can't go to church, the park, a grocery store or a restaurant without a mask. “It appears the county supervisors have the power to overturn the county health officials orders,” said Meuser.

Link to the Riverside County Board Of Supervisor's website: https://countyofriverside.us/AboutTheCounty/BoardofSupervisors.aspx Link to the Center of Disease Control website: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html