THREAD—Three GOP 5th Circuit judges revived a TX lawsuit for an order requiring voters to wear masks.
The 5th Circuit has jurisdiction over MS as well as TX, and its implicit holding that states can require voters to wear masks rebukes @MississippiSOS. 1/ foxnews.com/politics/coron…
The TX lawsuit sought many items of relief, all of which the district court and 5th Circuit rejected EXCEPT for the plaintiffs' claim under the Voting Rights Act for a mask mandate at polling places.
The VRA claim is that failure to mandate masks unduly burdens Texans' of color right to vote because it unduly exposes voters to COVID-19, a disease that disproportionately affects people of color. 3/
At the oral argument, Judges Owen, Davis, and Southwick (1 Reagan and 2 W appointees) asked why masks were not required. TX suggested that there may be a right to vote without a mask, but the panel refused to accept that notion.
Mississippi's SecState @MichaelWatsonMS repeatedly claims that voters cannot be required to wear masks in order to vote in-person inside the polling place—which is a core premise of Watson's new regulations for polling places. 5/
Not only did the 5th Circuit refuse to accept the suggestion that a state CAN'T require voters to wear masks to vote in-person in the polling place, but it required the trial court on remand to decide whether the VRA REQUIRES TX to do so in order to protect voters of color. 6/
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HR 5835 raised the highest tax bracket from 28% to 31%. Four of Mississippi's five members of the US House voted in favor of HR 5835: clerk.house.gov/Votes/1990528
Thad Cochran voted in favor of HR 5835, and Senator Lott voted against it: senate.gov/legislative/LI… 3/
THREAD—SecState Michael Watson held an event that excluded print reporters to discuss Mississippi's Nov. 3 elections, where masks will not be required.
Watson said poll workers will wear masks but claims it would be unconstitutional to require voters to wear masks. 1/
Watson doubled down, saying that "too many men and women have died for this right" to vote to require voters to wear masks. 2/
Watson said one MS Coast county received 3000 absentee requests in the first three days of absentee voting compared to 6000 total absentee votes cast in the county in 2016.
This is new information because Mississippi does not publicy disclose election data. 3/
An open question in the Espy/Hyde-Smith race is whether @MSTODAYnews will report issues or merely reprint statements from campaign managers, prognosticators, Mike Espy, and Henry Barbour.
Cindy hopes they're too scurred she'll call them a "blog" again.
Or they could report whether Cindy lived up to her word that the Senate's votes on the HEROES Act and the SMART Act would come before late summer "for sure."
QUICKTHREAD: This lawsuit was assigned to Chief Judge Jordan, a George W. Bush appointee who has already delivered victories to voting-rights plaintiffs twice in 2020.
Jordan's assignment is excellent news for the plaintiffs and terrible news for Sec. Watson and AG Fitch. 1/
Jordan presides over the O'Neil v. Hosemann case filed in 2018 over Mississippi's now-abolished rule that mail-in ballots be received the day prior to the election. Jordan initially ruled that the requirement made absentee voting "tight—if not impossible" for some voters. 2/
Jordan set the O'Neil v. Hosemann case for a pretrial conference in May 2020, and the #MSLeg immediately repealed the requirement at issue, such Mississippi now counts absentee ballots postmarked by election day as long as they are received within five days. 3/
Geoff shouldn't go light on Cindy by omitting Cindy's 2018 claim in her 2018 debate with @MikeEspyMS that she is "very accessible" to voters. (Since Cindy insisted no audience be allowed at the 2018 debate, I added my best guess at what an audience's reaction would have been.) 2/
The most recent and relevant precedent for not debating opponents in Mississippi is not Biden or Cochran but Lynn Fitch—who won her 2019 race for AG by refusing to debate @Andy_Taggart, refusing to debate @J_RileyCollins, and refusing to speak with the press. 2/