Rewriting Statutes Via Courts
Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
Slate Audio
4.6 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2022
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Amicus – in studio edition! – host Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor
Lawrence O. Gostin, professor of global health law, at Georgetown University, among many other things. They talk about the federal district court in Florida’s decision to lift the mask mandate for public transportation. While it may seem like a small deal given that the mandate was set to expire in a few weeks anyway, the decision was built on a very labored and tortured interpretation of the word “sanitation.” Professor Gostin explains that this case could have a chilling effect on government agencies. They also discuss why the decision by the Biden administration to appeal involved a lot of political calculous.
In our Slate Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to talk about a death penalty decision at the Supreme Court and an upcoming case about school prayer.
Podcast production by Cheyna Roth.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Why does American democracy look the way it does? |
| 0:02.8 | And how can we make it more responsive to the people it was formed to serve? |
| 0:06.8 | Democracy Decoded, a podcast by Campaign Legal Center, |
| 0:10.4 | examines our government and discusses innovative ideas that could lead to a stronger, more transparent, |
| 0:16.8 | accountable and inclusive democracy. |
| 0:19.4 | In season two, host Simone Leeper covers everything you need to know about voting in the US. |
| 0:24.9 | Listen to the latest season at democracydecoded.org or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:36.7 | I couldn't think of a worse way for COVID-era masking on transport to be over than by a single |
| 0:45.8 | federal judge in Florida. |
| 0:48.0 | So this is obviously a disappointing decision. The CDC continues recommending wearing a mask in public transit. |
| 0:59.2 | Hi and welcome to Amicus. This is Slate's podcast about the court and the law and the rule of law. |
| 1:06.4 | I'm Dahlia Lithwick and I cover some of those things for Slate. |
| 1:10.4 | This week we're actually going to turn our eyes briefly from the US Supreme Court to a federal |
| 1:15.8 | district court in Florida which decided on Monday to lift the mask mandate for public transportation |
| 1:23.3 | all around the country. At one level it could seem a little trivial. The mandate was going to |
| 1:29.6 | expire May 3rd. Anyhow, the ruling came from a newly minted Trump judge who basically just tortured |
| 1:37.2 | the word sanitation into a smoldering heap in order to get herself there. And I guess everybody |
| 1:44.9 | hates masks now. So no big deal. But actually this ruling was a big deal and it feels like another |
| 1:52.5 | episode of a lone federal jurist substituting their own public health opinion for that of an |
| 1:59.6 | entire government agency tasked with dealing with what is still my friends a lethal pandemic. |
| 2:06.6 | It also feels like part of a larger effort to ensure that those very agencies are increasingly |
| 2:13.0 | sidelined with claims of government overreach and really expansive new ideas about liberty. |
... |
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