Muscatine Mayor Diane Broderson issues city wide mask wearing order!

[rurallib]

Email from a friend with Iowa Citizens for Community Involvement:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 4, 2020

Contact: Hugh Espey, 515-282-0484, [e-mail]

Governor Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Tom Miller have no legal authority to pre-empt local mask mandates
Iowa Code 372.14 gives mayors explicit emergency powers that can not be preempted by the governor without an act of the Iowa Legislature

Des Moines, Iowa --

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) members support Muscatine Mayor Diana Broderson's decision to issue a citywide universal mask-wearing order.

"That's alright with me," said Mike Baxter, a CCI member and independent family farmer from Muscatine.

"Until the numbers go down, I think it's a smart thing. Protecting people who aren't asking to get sick makes sense."

Governor Reynolds and AG Miller have no legal authority to stop the Muscatine mayor.

According to Iowa Code 372.14(2): The mayor may take command of the police and govern the city by proclamation, upon making a determination that a time of emergency or public danger exists.

Past precedent on issues like local control of factory farms, raising the minimum wage, sanctuary cities for immigrants, fireworks, and gun control clearly show that Iowa municipalities have the power to pass local ordinances stronger than state law unless and until they are preempted by an act of the Iowa Legislature.

In a similar way, Iowa mayors have explicit authority granted to them by the Iowa Legislature under IC.372.14(2) to issue emergency proclamations that may be stronger than a governor's statewide order.

"On masks and local emergency powers, Attorney General Tom Miller is as wrong as wrong can be," said Cherie Mortice, a CCI member and retired teacher from Des Moines.

This should be a press release out tomorrow.

Some here may recall that a mostly Republican city council tried to fire Broderson a couple of years ago. When the next election came around the Mayor and several new democratic council members turned the Republican council out in a big way.

Thank you, Mayor Broderson. Finally a city I can shop in gain.

[elleng]

1. Excellent!

And The Music Man's on TCM now!

[rurallib]

2. Written by that great Iowan Meredith Wilson!

ETA - and starring Iowa's own Donna Reed.

[JPPaverage]

3. Just saw a guy on TV saying

that "She doesn't have the authority" to declare mandatory masking. I guess that guy is wrong. Good.

[rurallib]

4. I suspect Republicans were not expecting that any local official would

Last edited Mon Jul 6, 2020, 03:03 PM - Edit history (1)

even attempt to issue such an order. Plus they probably thought they had it covered with some other local initiative quashing they could do.

Broderson is a tough cookie. However, they still have that gawd awful city manager that tried to get her fired once before. IIRC the city attorney was in cahoots with the city manager.

I have kind of lost touch with the city of Muscatine since we dropped off the central committee.

ETA - The city manager is gone and they have no city attorney, so my memory was faulty. Just talked to a friend who lives near Muscy. He said there was a rather hostile crowd at the announcement yesterday.

Do these people want to die?