Missouri AG 'doesn't have the authority' over school COVID measures, lawyer says
An attorney hired by a Lee’s Summit school district wasted little time responding to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt last week after Schmitt threatened legal action against the district.
Schmitt had sent letters to school districts across Missouri, ordering them to cease and desist their COVID-19 safety measures. Joe Hatley, a partner with the law firm Spencer Fane, fired back at Schmitt on Dec. 10, strongly defending the R-7 School District’s coronavirus-related efforts.
On Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air, Hatley explained why.
“The first reason is that he simply doesn’t have the authority under state law to tell the school board to cease and desist its COVID mitigation efforts,” he told host Sarah Fenske. “He’s simply wrong about that. And more fundamentally, I think the feeling was that his letter encroached on the authority of the board of education, which is a locally elected body, to make its own decisions, and to follow the law, which state law allows it to do.”
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2021-12-15/missouri-ags-threats-against-school-districts-draw-pushback?
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