Georgia's governor and Atlanta's mayor ordered to mediate coronavirus
mask fight
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[July 24, 2020]
By Rich McKay
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A Georgia judge on
Thursday ordered the governor and Atlanta's mayor to enter mediation
over the governor's lawsuit aimed at stopping the city from enforcing
its requirement that people wear masks in public during the coronavirus
pandemic.
Fulton Superior Court Judge Jane Barwick ordered Governor Brian Kemp and
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to attend mediation with another judge and
try to resolve the dispute before an emergency hearing scheduled in the
case for Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Kemp, a Republican, barred local leaders from
requiring people to wear masks. Even so, several Georgia cities,
including Democratic-led Atlanta, Savannah and Athens, defied the
governor's order and kept local mandates in place in an effort to slow
the spread of the virus.
Bottoms told reporters that she and Kemp spoke by phone on the matter.
"We are both in agreement that masks saves lives," she said. "Hopefully
we can move past this."
The governor's office filed a lawsuit on July 16 against Bottoms and the
Atlanta city council, arguing that local officials lack the legal
authority to override Kemp's orders.
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Keisha Lance Bottoms, Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia,speaks at
the Concordia Summit in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September
24, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
"Kemp must be allowed, as the chief executive of this state, to
manage a public health emergency without Mayor Bottoms issuing void
and unenforceable orders which only serve to confuse the public,"
the 16-page complaint read.
More than 4 million people in the United States have been diagnosed
with the virus, including more than 150,000 cases in Georgia with
more than 3,000 fatalities in the state.
Kemp has stood apart even from his Republican counterparts on the
mask issue. More than half of all states have statewide mask
mandates.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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