unofan
Well-known member
I don't know that the government will appeal it, or even should.
These cases are about process, nothing more, nothing less.
People hear about a case like this, and their first response is something like, "oh sure, and next they will tell us that the government can't impose a regulation that you wear seatbelts on a plane."
That is not what this case is about.
Congress gives certain agencies broad powers to enact regulations. These regulations might deal with travel, working conditions, consumer products, or whatever.
But here is the thing. There is a process for implementing those regulations. It is a detailed process, and in most instances, time consuming. I believe there are even processes for implementing regulations on a temporary or emergency basis.
The head of the CDC coming out and saying, "ok everyone, we're all wearing masks on planes," is not the process. We don't just do laws, rules and regulations by proclamation of an individual.
It would be like if the head of OSHA announced today that everyone who works with an electronic device must now wear a 7mm neoprene wetsuit and an industrial welding mask, until further notice. You're response would probably be, "wait, what the fuck?"
Maybe such a regulation is needed for computer users, but that's not the process for how we do it.
What the government did with Covid is this. Basically, they elected to go ahead and just implement certain rules knowing that in all likelihood their process for doing so was suspect, but gambling that the time necessary for getting their actions tossed by judges would buy them time against the disease.
Except it wasn't even about that, as much as the GOP will spin it that way. It was about the temporary extension of a rule by about a month, two weeks' of which had already elapsed, in response to the latest variant picking up steam.
The judge is unqualified and issued a crap ruling. The only reason the government shouldn't appeal is because it's supposed to lapse in 2 weeks anyway and there's no point in causing the confusion an appeal would bring.