The Supreme Court on Wednesday denied an application filed on behalf of a group of Pennsylvania businesses and a Republican state House candidate to halt an executive order issued by Gov. Tom Wolf that limits which industries can operate amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The court denied the petition to stay the order without further comment.
"The application for stay presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied," the ruling states.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court refused a similar request last month, finding the group had "not established any basis for relief based upon their constitutional challenges.”
The petitioners include a real estate agent, the owner of a golf course and Danny DeVito, a GOP state representative candidate.
Wolf signed an executive order on March 19 that compelled businesses not classified as "life-sustaining" to close in order to contain the spread of the infectious disease. Two businesses listed on the petition -- the Caledonia Land Company and B&J Laundry -- reopened after Wolf moved their industries to the list of life-sustaining businesses, Marc Scaringi, a Harrisburg-based attorney representing the petitioners, previously told Fox News.
Earlier this week, the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office submitted a 43-page brief to the high court on Wolf's behalf defending his sweeping order.
“Much of what they argue amounts to public policy disagreements as to how the governor used his authority," the brief said. "The Pennsylvania Supreme Court applied well-established principles to conclude that the governor had that authority.
"Applicants do not challenge the principles themselves; they merely disagree with that court’s conclusions,” it continued. ”More fundamentally, such public policy prescriptions, as ill-founded as they are, are not legal grounds for challenging the governor’s order. The application should be denied.”
Like similar orders across the country, business closures have devastated local economies and have resulted in mass layoffs and worker furloughs.
"What he's [Wolf] doing to the average person is ... he is at this point making people completely homeless," Kathy Gregory, a real estate agent in eastern Pennsylvania and one of the petitioners, told Fox News.
While her business hasn't been devastated, her long-term earnings look bleak since she hasn't had opportunities to meet with clients, show homes and other realtor duties.
DeVito, who has moved his campaign operations online after he was forced to close his office, said he will continue to fight Wolf's order via political solutions. He also criticized Wolf's order, which he previously characterized as overly broad.
"You have multi-national corporations operating in Pennsylvania while small businesses are totally shut down," he told Fox News.
Since March 15, more than 1.7 million Pennsylvanians have filed for unemployment, according to the state's Office of Unemployment Compensation. State governments have come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks as the call for the rollback of social distancing measures and the reopening of businesses grows louder.
On Wednesday Wolf announced plans to create a body to support efforts to increase COVID-19 testing and contact tracing while also providing public health sector jobs.
“Our highest priority remains protecting public health and safety, but we must also look ahead to see how we can address future needs. To reopen our economy to its maximum potential, we will need to boost our ability to contain this highly transmissible virus,” Wolf said of the Commonwealth Civilian Coronavirus Corps.
Statewide, Pennsylvania recorded 51,845 coronavirus cases, including 3,345 deaths. The high court must still decide whether to hear an appeal to the state Supreme Court's ruling.
No comments:
Post a Comment