JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Attorney General Eric Schmitt on Friday dismissed his challenge to masking rules in the city of St. Louis, and his office also announced an end to dozens of lawsuits he filed against Missouri school districts this year.
Chris Nuelle, spokesman for Schmitt, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, said the attorney general dropped the St. Louis lawsuit because “there is no mask mandate” in the city. Indoor masking rules in St. Louis were last in effect March 5.
“While Eric Schmitt wastes taxpayer dollars in an attempt to lift his Senate campaign, the city of St. Louis will continue to follow the guidance of health and hospital experts,” Nick Dunne, spokesman for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, said in a statement Friday.
He said the masking rules were “allowed to expire as key COVID-19 metrics — hospitalizations, case counts, case positivity rates — move in the right direction.”
Nuelle said the attorney general’s office stood ready to file another lawsuit if the city reinstated masking requirements.
Earlier Friday, Nuelle confirmed Schmitt was dropping lawsuits against school districts that no longer had masking rules in place.
Schmitt in January announced he was suing more than 40 school districts across the state with masking requirements in place to control the spread of COVID-19.
“Because of that successful litigation and the fact that many school districts have dropped their mask mandates, we are dismissing lawsuits in districts where masking is no longer required,” Nuelle said in a statement. “However, make no mistake, the Attorney General’s Office stands ready, willing, and able to file more lawsuits if school districts cruelly decide to again force masking of children in school all day.”
He said lawsuits would continue in five school districts that still have masking requirements: University City, Maplewood-Richmond Heights, Clayton, Normandy and Center, in the Kansas City area.
He said lawsuits against the Columbia and St. Charles districts, which no longer have mask rules, are also continuing.
“They (the lawsuits) have been a distraction for our school districts,” said Christine McDonald, spokeswoman for EducationPlus, which represents St. Louis-area school districts.
Nuelle said the lawsuits led to districts dropping the rules, but McDonald rejected the assertion, saying the lawsuits didn’t play a role in the changes in policies.
“These lawsuits really hadn’t progressed very far,” McDonald said. “All of the school districts’ decisions to drop or change their mask policy have been based on data that we’ve had around in our communities, consultation with doctors and a decision made by their board.
The rolling average of COVID-19 cases in Missouri peaked at 15,130 on Jan. 6 and has since plummeted — to an average of 470 cases on Friday, according to a Post-Dispatch analysis.
“We still stand by the fact that elected school boards can and have the ability to make these decisions,” McDonald said. “And they are ultimately the ones who made the decision to change the status.”
Schmitt in December fired off cease-and-desist letters to districts telling them to immediately end quarantine and masking rules after a Cole County judge issued a ruling striking state health regulations.
Educators said they had the authority under Missouri law to take such measures in response to the pandemic.
A letter then by the Missouri School Boards’ Association said “school districts’ authority and obligation to prevent the spread of contagious diseases in schools has not been impacted.”
It cited five Missouri statutes that “give the local school board authority to make health and safety rules,” including one law that gives boards of education “general control of the property and affairs of any school district” and another saying it is unlawful for a child to go to school while sick with “any contagious or infectious disease, or while liable to transmit such disease after having been exposed to it.”
But parents and students opposed to mandatory masking presented Schmitt’s cease-and-desist letter to administrators in protest.
Schmitt asked parents to email information on mandatory masks and quarantines to a tip line his office set up called “illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov.”
In January, his office followed up with dozens of lawsuits seeking to end mandatory masking policies at schools. Many of the tipsters were listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuits.
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