Pennsylvania: Federal Judge Rules that Governor Tom Wolf’s COVID Restrictions Are Unconstitutional

Pennsylvania: A Trump-appointed federal judge ruled that Governor Tom Wolf’s pandemic restrictions that placed size limits on gatherings, required people to stay at home, and ordered “non-life-sustaining” businesses to shut down are unconstitutional. While people are no longer sentenced to staying at home and most businesses have reopened, the ruling means that the Governor should not have done it and can’t do it again, according to plaintiffs’ attorney.

The plaintiffs included owners of hair salons, drive-in movie theaters, a farmer’s market vendor, a horse trainer and several Republican officeholders. In May, a dozen or more counties planned to defy Governor Wolf’s business shut-down orders, and he responded by threatening to revoke their state licenses, and he also warned that he could withhold state funding to county governments.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s pandemic restrictions that required people to stay at home, placed size limits on gatherings and ordered “non-life-sustaining” businesses to shut down are unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, sided with 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, a Democrat, and his health secretary.

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.”

The ruling means that current restrictions, including ones that limit the size of indoor and outdoor gatherings, can’t be enforced, according to attorney Thomas W. King III, who represented the plaintiffs.

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