Attorney general calls Beshear’s COVID-19 travel ban unconstitutional in KY lawsuit
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has filed a motion in federal court in which he calls Gov. Andy Beshear’s coronavirus travel restrictions unconstitutional, according to court records.
Cameron was initially sued alongside Beshear by a woman who accused them of putting in place and enforcing travel bans that were unconstitutional in response to the outbreak of COVID-19. Beshear signed an executive order in late March restricting nonessential out-of-state travel in an effort to slow the spread of the illness.
The lawsuit was filed April 2 by Allison S. Alessandro, of Campbell County, who has since been removed from the lawsuit, according to court records. The two remaining plaintiffs were identified only as W.O. and M.O. in the court record. The lawsuit requested an injunction preventing the enforcement of the travel restrictions.
On Monday, Cameron filed a motion to realign himself as a plaintiff in the lawsuit rather than a defendant, saying “his interests coincide with those of the existing Plaintiffs, M.O. and W.O.,” according to court records.
“Kentuckians have a fundamental and constitutional right to freely travel from one state to another,” Cameron said in a release Tuesday. “While the spread of COVID-19 requires Kentuckians to follow CDC recommendations for social distancing and use caution when traveling, the governor’s order is overly broad by banning nearly all travel. If the governor is going to ask Kentuckians to surrender their constitutional right to freely travel as part of the fight against COVID-19, such a restriction must be narrowly tailored. The sweeping scope of his travel ban, if left unchecked, creates a dangerous precedent.”
Beshear’s order requires people who travel out of state and return to self-quarantine for 14 days. Violation of an executive order could result in a misdemeanor charge, Cameron said.
“The governor’s travel ban impermissibly violates the fundamental right of every Kentucky citizen to interstate travel. This being the attorney general’s position, he should be realigned as a plaintiff,” Cameron’s attorneys wrote in the motion.
After the lawsuit was filed, Beshear said in a press conference, “I’m not worried about it, and we will win it.”
Since the beginning of the outbreak, Beshear has said he wants to put politics aside while dealing with COVID-19. But as the measures in place to slow the spread of the illness continue, state Democrats and Republicans have increasingly butted heads.
Cameron, a Republican, and Beshear, a Democrat, recently clashed when Beshear vetoed a bill that would have allowed Cameron to halt abortions during the coronavirus pandemic.
Judge Gregory F. VanTatenhove had not yet responded to Cameron’s motion as of Tuesday morning, according to court records. Both of the existing plaintiffs supported Cameron’s motion to join their side of the lawsuit, according to the motion.
In another coronavirus-related conflict, Cameron held a press conference Tuesday in which he called on Beshear to rescind his order that prohibits in-person church services during the outbreak. Beshear has previously said that his order prohibiting mass gatherings does not single out religious services.
In his press conference, Cameron said Beshear’s order violates religious freedoms provided in the Constitution. He said he was not advocating for churches to resume in-person services right away. The decision should be left to religious leaders. Cameron threatened to file a lawsuit against Beshear if the order was not rescinded.
Beshear responded to Cameron’s complaints on both the travel and church-related orders in his daily press conference Tuesday.
“In both cases we’ve had early rulings by a judge indicating that they are likely to rule that everything we have done is legal,” Beshear said. “I’m not trying to set rules that are difficult, and I’m not trying to set rules that are controversial. I’m just trying to set rules that save people’s lives.”
Beshear said he would not get into a “back and forth” with anyone on the subjects and said, not for the first time, that he’s “done with politics.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 11:44 AM with the headline "Attorney general calls Beshear’s COVID-19 travel ban unconstitutional in KY lawsuit."
