As Steve said here, Sununu has lifted his Mandatory Mask Emergency Order #74 here – and also said that any local ordinances by town and cities that have their own Mandatory Mask regulations could continue to have them in force. Really?
I went back into #74 and found this:
4. Nothing in this Order shall be construed to prevent municipalities within the State of New Hampshire from enacting their own ordinances related to the wearing of masks or cloth face coverings that contain stricter provisions than those contained within this Order.
So, this E.O. declares that it has no power over towns and cities doing their own mandates. Saying that an E.O. can’t stop a T/C from enacting their own is NOT the same as granting such a Power. Thus, the question is, WHERE DID THEY get that Power in the first place?
I went back to an older post dealing with the protests at Newfields in front of Sununu’s house as it seemed that the Selectmen there (including Sununu’s bruddah) tried to make it illegal to do such protesting.
RSA 31 (listed in the link to the Newfields post above) deals with what kinds of ByLaws that towns/cities are allowed to do for local ordinances. They are not allowed to do anything they want as we are a Dillon’s Rule State – those (and any other) subdivisions of the State can only do those actions that have an authorizing RSA to back them up.
With that last part, it’s clear that RSA 31 doesn’t give subdivisions the Power (Governments have Powers, Individuals have Rights) to put mandatory mask ordinances into place. I went through a number of His Excellency’s E.O.s trying to find WHERE such Powers are granted.
No, I haven’t gone through the health RSAs; perhaps there is something there…
Certainly, there was nothing in the other parts of the NH Media that had a clue – they were just in binary mode: WILL <name of town/city> put one in or not?
But if there isn’t such a granting of said Power, how are towns/cities enabled to keep their local mandatory masks ordinances, or does everything fall apart?
