South Carolina officials want out of mask mandate ban suit

South Carolina officials who have been sued over a law banning school districts from issuing face mask mandates say that they should be removed from pending litigation.

That's the argument made in recent court filings from Gov. Henry McMaster, Attorney General Alan Wilson and others being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of disability rights groups and parents of South Carolina children with disabilities. The plaintiffs are challenging a budget measure passed this summer that prevents South Carolina districts from using any state funding to require masks in schools.

In papers filed last week, attorneys for McMaster — a Republican who has said repeatedly that parents alone should decide if children wear masks in schools — argued that the ACLU and its clients “have not alleged, and they cannot reasonably or plausibly allege, that Governor McMaster acted with bad faith or gross misconduct.”

The plaintiffs, they went on, “cannot simply litigate their policy preferences or run to court over their disagreements with decisions made by their representatives in the General Assembly."

The lawsuit percolates as South Carolina deals with a renewed COVID-19 surge, driven in part by the delta variant and a vaccination rate of just under 50% of eligible residents. Intensive care units in both adult and children hospitals are full, and more than 750 deaths have been reported in the first half of September. The average new cases reported daily is still around 4,500 — a level only surpassed during the winter peak, before vaccines were widely available.

The resurgence has forced a number of schools and two entire districts back to online learning within a month of returning in person. Some districts and cities have disregarded the ban, moving forward with...