“Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox issued a preliminary injunction against the law that Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed in April banning mask requirements by governmental entities. The ban was being challenged by two lawsuits, including one from an east Arkansas school district where more than 900 staff and students are quarantining because of a coronavirus outbreak,” reports the Little Rock Star Tribune.

“Fox ruled the law violates Arkansas’ constitution, saying it discriminates between public and private school students. He said it also infringes on the governor’s emergency powers, as well as the authority of county officials and the state Supreme Court. The law “cannot be enforced in any shape, fashion or form” pending further court action, Fox said.”

Although I have not yet been able to find the full text of the Judge’s decision online (Arkansas’s state court reporting website hasn’t posted anything since July 6th), and my comments on the nature of the judge’s ruling are speculative, this particular outcome is no surprise. The infringing upon the authority of the Governor and State Court system most likely refers to the ability of the Governor and the Courts to seek to have the state cooperate with the Federal Government to implement recently added provisions of the Public Health Services Act. For the legislature to mandate how the Governor and State Courts should respond to Federal efforts to control a pandemic outbreak is an obvious insult to notions of the balance of powers.

The statement about local officials has to do with the right of the people to petition their government for the redress of grievances, a bedrock principle of our Federal Constitution that is echoed in the language of State Constitutions all across the country. It is not acceptable that pure partisan faction should drive a state to refuse the right of the people to petition their local government leaders to heed the advice of Federal Agencies for the purpose of trying to protect their children from an infectious disease.

The fact that both of these conditions apply equally in all of the states, and that the concepts of balance of powers and the right to petition state and local governments are such primary concepts in American law, means that Ron DeSantis’s recent attempt to ban mask mandates in public schools may face the same fate as the Arkansas law.