Gov. Ducey Risks Children’s Lives for Political Points

By slipping into the state budget a ban on school mask mandates, our lame-duck Governor made a down payment to his political future at the expense of our school children’s health – knowing he would not face Arizona voters again. He was appeasing the right-wing GOP party and anti-truth primary voters in the Iowa caucuses and other Presidential primary states like New Hampshire.

• Cynical governance and contemptuous of Arizonians? Yes!
• Calculating in favor of Trump’s political base over knowable science? Without Question!
• Endangering the lives of students and their families? Guilty!

Fortunately, a recent court decision ruled the mask mandate ban in schools unconstitutional. But not before Ducey threatened to withhold federal COVID funds from schools mandating masks. He went even further to politicize the Covid crisis by offering parents in disagreement with those mandates financial assistance to deny science and keep their kids out of school.

Thankfully, school districts in Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff dared to fight against these reckless policies and implement mask mandates in response to increased exposure to the virulent Delta variant. To its credit, the CDC recently released a finding that schools in Maricopa and Pima Counties with mask requirements were 3.5 times less likely to have COVID-19 outbreaks than schools not mandating masks.

→ Poll Shows Majority Of Arizona Voters Are For Mask Mandates

Gov. Ducey’s actions are attributable to the dramatic increase in pediatric COVID infections due to schools reopening without mask mandates. As a result, there were 227 active school outbreaks in Maricopa County, according to CDC data, with 1,661 students infected at the beginning of September. Local health officials estimate that children under 12 — who are not eligible to be vaccinated — make up one-sixth of Maricopa County’s Covid-19 cases and that hospitalizations of children have doubled monthly.

Lock him up

There is also the question of accountability of a term-limited, cynical, calculating governor endangering school children and their families. Writing in a recent Blog for Arizona, AZ Blue Meanie, a nom de plume for an Arizona citizen, offers this judgment about Gov. Ducey’s actions:

“This is the very definition of criminal negligence (criminal negligence means that an individual fails to realize that there is a considerable risk that the act being committed can result in serious harm or death to another person). Charge this Trump death cult governor with criminal negligence and be done with him.”

Imagine how that would play in snowy Iowa and New Hampshire in the winter of 2024.