The Justice Department has filed an appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not have the legal authority to issue a masking wearing mandate on airliners and other modes of public transportation, NBC News reports.
In April, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, the 35-year-old US District Court Judge for Middle Florida whose nomination to the bench by Donald Trump drew a rare “not qualified” label from the American Bar Association, ruled that the CDC did not have authority to issue a mask mandate. In her ruling, which she issued without hearing arguments in the case, Mizelle referred to several debunked scientific and medical claims as if they were fact.
At the time of Mizelle’s ruling, the Biden Administration said it would not appeal the decision because coronavirus infection rates were dropping and the mask mandate was likely to be allowed to expire. But with coronavirus infection rates ticking up and the clock running out on the window to appeal, the DOJ decided to file.
“None of the district court’s quarrels with the CDC order comes close to showing that the CDC has acted outside the ‘zone of reasonableness,’” the Justice Department wrote, adding that the CDC findings in early 2021 provided “ample support for the agency’s determination that there was good cause to make the order effective without delay.”