Georgia governor backs out of hearing on Atlanta mask order

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s governor said he’s withdrawing a request for an emergency hearing in a lawsuit that aims to block the state’s largest city from ordering people to wear masks in public or imposing other restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gov. Brian Kemp earlier this month sued Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the City Council. The Republican governor argues local leaders cannot impose measures that are more or less restrictive than those in his executive orders.

The two sides met for court-ordered mediation Monday. Kemp spokesman Cody Hall announced Monday night that the governor wanted “to continue productive, good faith negotiations” and had decided to withdraw the request for a hearing that was scheduled for Tuesday morning. But that request would not withdraw the underlying lawsuit.

Hall claimed a partial victory Monday as part of the justification for standing down from the emergency hearing, saying Bottoms had clarified previous confusing statements.

“The mayor retreated from misleading claims that the city was reverting to phase one by shuttering specific businesses and penalizing law-abiding business owners,” Hall said in a statement. “From the beginning, this overstep by the mayor was our foremost concern and the primary impetus behind the litigation, given the threat of economic harm and immediate backlash from Atlanta’s business community.”

Bottoms has said those statements are recommendations, not legal orders, and that Kemp did not understand what she was doing.

Bottoms’ office did not immediately have a comment late Monday night on the governor's plan to withdraw the request for a hearing.

Atlanta is one of more than a dozen local jurisdictions in the state that has ordered people to wear face coverings...