Reminder: The Jeffco Mask “Mandate” Was Always a Sham

In the wake of tinpot health bully Dawn Comstock resigning, businesses all over Jeffco are breathing sighs of relief as they’ve been told that the indoor mask “mandate” has been lifted. In reality, they are celebrating the fact that Jeffco Public Health is no longer lying straight to their would-be-masked faces. The truth is that the so-called “mandate” never actually existed legally – it was all a ruse based on purposeful legal misinterpretations and obvious lies.

Not only did Jeffco Public Health have no statutory authority to issue such an order absent a state-declared emergency (and indeed, they lied about the language of the applicable Colorado statute to grant themselves authority beyond the state government itself), JCPH had no ability to enforce compliance.

Even the Jeffco Sheriff’s Department reminded residents that they would not attempt to enforce non-existent laws.

The legal arguments used by JCPH to institute their “order” – if carried out to its logical conclusion – provide JCPH with the authority to do literally anything to the citizenry in the name of public health. The agency granted itself blank check authority over the most fundamental individual rights of the citizenry. The recently rescinded “order” stated:

JCPH has the power and duty to investigate and control the causes of epidemic or communicable diseases and conditions affecting the public health within Jefferson County, as well as the power and duty to close schools and public places and to prohibit gatherings of people when necessary to protect public health, and to establish, maintain, and enforce isolation and quarantine, and in pursuance thereof, to exercise physical control over property and over persons within Jefferson County as JCPH may find necessary for the protection of public health.

This is a blank check of physical control over you if they find it necessary. Their “power” basically works like this:

We have determined that ___________ is bad for public health. Therefore, we are commanding you to ___________.

In this case, they filled in the blanks with “not covering your face with fabric” and “cover your face in order to enter publicly accessible buildings.”

It could just as easily be filled with “smoking” and “stop selling tobacco products.”

Or perhaps “obesity” and “report to the government how much soda you consume.”

Or how about “not being vaccinated with novel vaccine technology” and “be vaccinated as a condition of having a job?”

The damage that this order (and others like it) have done to the rule of law and the sovereignty of the citizen cannot be overstated. The precedent this episode has set will have far-reaching and potentially devastating consequences for citizens for generations to come.

The ceasing of the “mandate” lie is nothing to celebrate. Instead, we should be lamenting the fact that thousands of Jeffco residents and businesses didn’t even question whether or not the bureaucrats at JCPH had the authority to force fabric onto their faces in the first place.