Supreme Court Unanimously Strikes Down Bans On Mask Mandates And ‘Critical Race Theory’

Jeremy Duda, Arizona Mirror

November 2, 2021

The Arizona Supreme Court found that several provisions of the 2022 budget, including a controversial ban on face mask mandates in K-12 schools, violate a provision of the state constitution requiring individual bills to encompass a single subject.

The ruling will likely bring about a seismic shift in the way lawmakers craft future budgets.

Less than two hours after it heard oral arguments in the case on Tuesday, the justices unanimously upheld a trial court ruling from September that several budget bills violated a section of the Arizona Constitution known as the “single-subject rule.” That rule mandates that legislation embrace “one general subject” and that the subject be clear in the title of the bill.

The court will issue a full opinion at a later date. That opinion will almost certainly change the practice, which has become increasingly common over the course of nearly 20 years, of packing budget bills full of a wide range of disparate policy changes.

A group of elected officials, advocacy groups and citizens filed a lawsuit after Republican lawmakers and Gov. Doug Ducey enacted a budget for the 2022 fiscal year that included numerous changes to the law that they violated the single-subject rule.

Those provisions barred school districts and charter schools from imposing face mask requirements to curb the spread of COVID-19, prohibited the teaching of “critical race theory” in K-12 schools, barred colleges and universities from requiring COVID vaccines or testing of students, and prohibited cities and counties from requiring people to show “vaccine passports.”

The ruling also blocks several new laws unrelated to COVID or the ongoing pandemic. The budget bills would have established rules for anti-fraud countermeasures in ballots for counties that choose to use them, stripped Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of the authority to defend election laws in court, and enacted other so-called “election integrity” measures.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.