Title: Biden wants a national face mask mandate. Can he do that?
Headings: Biden wants a national face mask mandate. Can he do that?
Biden wants a national face mask mandate. Can he do that?
A majority of Democrats and Republicans support masks and mask mandates
A national mask mandate isn’t as simple as it might seem
New goal: 25,000

Content: That’s what we’re about” and “Americans must have their freedoms.” The legality of a national mask mandate has yet to be tested in the courts, owing to the unprecedented nature of the pandemic and its recentness (the Supreme Court has issued rulings about statewide church attendance restrictions — both against the church plaintiffs, citing the government’s right to protect public health and safety). So there isn’t a definitive yes or no answer on if or how a president could order a mask mandate or how it would be enforced, and legal experts who have weighed in on the subject are not in universal agreement. Two law professors from Chapman University and the University of California Berkeley, writing in the Orange County Register, argued that the federal government doesn’t have the authority to enact a federal mandate, saying that public health and safety is supposed to be and always has been the domain of state governments. And they argued that if the federal government wanted a mandate, it would have to come from a law passed through Congress — not an order from the president. A report from the Congressional Research Service, however, cited laws that could give the executive branch the ability to enact a mask mandate using powers it is granted during public health emergencies. However, the report also noted that federal enforcement of such an order might not be possible, given state and local authorities’ struggles to enforce the state mandates that have already been introduced. One political science professor and legal scholar at Florida Atlantic University, writing for Florida’s Palm Beach Post, might have summed it all up best with his answer: “ Maybe.” Of course, none of this will even be at issue if Biden doesn’t win the election in the first place (unless Trump does a very sudden U-turn and tries to order a national mask mandate).