Somebody just remembered the Alamo.
On Monday, after a lower court struck down Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates, the Texas Supreme Court overturned the ruling in favor of Abbott, showing the more polite members of his party that you can indeed fight back against bureaucratic overreach, and win.
Abbott isn’t exactly a cowboy here; he’s following in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s boot-clad footsteps, the latter of whom recently banned vaccine mandates on cruise ships, with a flurry of lawsuits following 100 yards behind trying to catch up. Kristi Noem, South Dakota’s governor, banned vaccine passports in the state as early as April. With the trail to shut down Covid-19-related overreach now sufficiently blazed, it’s time for the rest of the red states’ governors to step up to the plate.
Even if only to prevent an eternal, Groundhog Day-esque repetition of 2020, states like Arizona, Georgia, and Tennessee should come out strong against the returning Covid-19 mania as more blue states eye the prospect of yet another lockdown.
In other Texas-related Covid news: Abbott tests negative for COVID-19 four days after positive test. “‘I am told that my infection was brief and mild because of the vaccination I received,’ Abbott said in a video he posted on Twitter. ‘So, I encourage others who have not yet received the vaccination to consider getting one.’”