Putting kids at risk is not a winning political strategy

By Tom Coleman
Opinion, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

From Florida to Texas to Missouri, top elected officials are putting school children in danger of contracting the coronavirus by prohibiting local school districts from mandating mask-wearing by students while in school.

As virus cases spike in their respective states and children are returning to school, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have issued executive orders to prohibit school boards from instituting mask requirements or banned local officials from intervening.

Abbott announced last month that he had tested positive for the virus and was self-quarantining. It begs the larger question as to why he won’t let local officials require Texans in his situation to wear a mask.

In Missouri, the top law enforcement officer of the state, Attorney General Eric Schmitt, has filed what his office refers to as a “reverse class action” lawsuit against all the school districts in the state that have implemented a mask requirement. He is seeking court orders to stop the school districts from enforcing the mandates.

In his lawsuit, Schmitt makes this patently false allegation: “Mask use by the general population shows, at best, a marginal impact on the spread of COVID-19. And most studies show no distinguishable difference between places with mask mandates and those without them.”

Schmitt has also filed suits against the heavily populated areas of St. Louis and Kansas City.

Schmitt’s actions come as Missouri hospital leaders are raising the alarm about an increase in the number of children hospitalized with the coronavirus and asking adults to protect children by getting themselves vaccinated and wearing a mask.

What are these top officials and governors thinking? Well, not clearly, that’s for sure. It’s well known that political ambition can cloud the mind. And politics appears to be front and center on all three of their minds.

Both governors are up for reelection next year with the possibility of seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2024. Schmitt is a candidate for the Republican nomination for Missouri’s open U.S. Senate seat. All are offering up their radical ideas to the extreme right-wing base of their party.

Several polls indicate just how far these politicians are out of step with voters.

A Kaiser Family Foundation national poll found that 63% of parents of school-age children say unvaccinated students and staff should be required to wear masks while in school.

A recent Axios-Ispos poll found that 66% of Americans oppose and only 33% support state actions that prohibit local officials from implementing mask requirements.

And finally, a poll conducted in Florida by Quinnipiac University found that the anti-mask derangement syndrome peddled by the state’s governor was supported by only 36% of the public, while 60% supported requiring masks for students, teachers and staff.

Floridians, by a 63% to 33% margin, believe the wearing of masks is primarily about public health and not about personal freedom.

But Missouri’s Schmitt has decided it’s all about freedom. In filing his slew of anti-mask lawsuits he states, “This continued government overreach is unacceptable and unconstitutional. … There is absolutely no scientific reason to continue to force children to wear a mask in school. … Our freedoms are on the line.”

Schmitt is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. His filing statements rely on questionable scientific findings and lists boilerplate language supplied by the far-right Heritage Foundation as “evidence.”

Among his flimsy excuses offered that masks are harmful to children are several German studies, one of which included only 128 children. In his petition to the court, the Missouri attorney general asserts that masks on children fill them with “unhappiness … malaise.” Thus, children should not be required to wear a mask. That’s a thin reed of proof to lean on for what boils down to nothing more than his personal political opinion. Furthermore, local media has pointed out his lawsuit targeting St. Louis mask mandates is riddled with data errors.

The constitutionality of these types of state laws and executive actions has recently been addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court when it unanimously approved a University of Indiana vaccination requirement for students, faculty and staff.

As Schmitt’s lawsuits were being readied, the rate of new infections in children under the age of 12 more than doubled in July, with more than 500 children testing positive for the coronavirus in Springfield, Missouri. By the end of August, nationally there were over 200,000 cases of children who tested positive for the coronavirus.

Tom Coleman is a former Missouri congressman and serves as an adviser to Protect Democracy, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing our democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.
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09.07.21
Source: Coleman: Putting kids at risk is not a winning political strategy
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Photo Caption/Credit: Leandra Walker, center, helps her daughter Mila Walker, 5, with her mask before she enters school with her siblings Olivia, 7, left, and her twin Max for the first day of classes in Richardson, Texas, on Aug. 17. A poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that about 6 in 10 Americans say masks and vaccines should be required in schools. Associated Press