Counties file brief with U.S. Supreme Court case against governor
A “friend of the court” brief prepared on behalf of four Southwestern Pennsylvania counties was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court this week, claiming that Gov. Tom Wolf and Dr. Rachel Levine, secretary of health, violated constitutional rights by ordering certain businesses to close to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The brief, filed by attorney Thomas W. King of Butler, voices concerns of his home county plus Washington, Greene and Fayette in the case of Danny DeVito, a Republican legislative candidate from Carnegie, Kathy Gregory, a laundry, a public golf course and lounge and a real estate company.
The counties joined with DeVito “and friends,” as the case is captioned, in an attempt to have the U.S. Supreme Court consider the case on appeal from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Earlier this month, the highest court in the land declined to immediately clamp down on the governor and secretary of health by issuing what’s known as a “stay,” after DeVito lost a split decision in the state Supreme Court.
Whether to involve the counties in the legal proceeding was also a split along party lines among the four boards of county commissioners controlled by Republicans. Wolf is a Democrat.
In the brief, the counties took on the governor over a decision he made, without consulting the Legislature, on which businesses could continue to operate as life-sustaining, while others, deemed not to be life-sustaining, were shuttered. The counties also took issue with the handling of the waiver process.
The counties asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider that once restrictions began to be eased, “a matter as arbitrary as the placement of a county line will determine whether a citizen of the Commonwealth is permitted to pursue (his) livelihood and be free to pursue … lawful employment.”
The counties claimed the governor’s stated intention to elevate some counties on “red” alert to “yellow” cautionary status violates the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution.
It gave as an example Wolf’s declaration that real estate agents and brokers are not life sustaining and, therefore, must be closed in order to advance his goal of “social distancing.”
It called the classification “arbitrary and irrational” because a real estate agent “would be perfectly capable of carrying on a real estate practice with very limited client contact,” such as “one to two customers visiting or viewing a vacant piece of real estate, while maintaining a six-foot distance, while wearing a mask, and while not touching.
“On the contrary, a title insurance company, closing a real estate transaction on the same type of property that the (agent) is prohibited from showing,” is legally permitted to have people congregating in offices and coming into close contact with others, to finalize a real estate transaction.
The four counties moved from red to yellow last Friday.
As of Wednesday, Pennsylvania reported 4,624 deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus and 63,666 people infected.