The Governor of Georgia seems to be waging a war on the very device that health experts say will save lives. Earlier in the week, Brian Kemp ordered that cities and counties can’t mandate masks. Now he’s taking that a step further and suing Georgia’s biggest city over this and other measures intended to stop the spread. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, “The state filed a lawsuit challenging Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ July 10 decision to revert to “phase one” guidelines that push restaurants to close dining rooms and urge residents to leave home only for essential trips. It also casts the city’s new mask requirements as “void and unenforceable.”
BREAKING: Governor Kemp has filed a lawsuit against Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the Atlanta City Council following her efforts to require face masks in public places during the pandemic. Here are a couple pages of the 124 page complaint. pic.twitter.com/sT26IayeNZ
— Hayley Mason (@HayleyMasonTV) July 16, 2020
Bottoms is aggressively responding to Kemp’s actions saying:
3104 Georgians have died and I and my family are amongst the 106k who have tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, I have been sued by @GovKemp for a mask mandate. A better use of tax payer money would be to expand testing and contact tracing.
Reading is fundamental. @GovKemp is suing Atlanta over RECOMMENDED guidelines. #ATLStrong pic.twitter.com/j4E2XvZAFJ
— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) July 16, 2020
Watch what she told CBS This Morning about the lawsuit above.