“City/County leaders must not be thinking clearly,” Paxton said in a tweet. “Maybe it’s oxygen deprivation from quintuple-masking.”
Paxton has already fought Austin leaders in court once and won. A judge ruled on Jan. 1 that the city could not legally ban indoor dining and drinking at restaurants over the New Year’s Eve weekend, even as local coronavirus cases spiked.
Although daily new cases have been declining since a record peak in January, Texas still ranks fifth in the nation for highest daily reported deaths per capita. Despite many public health officials warning that it was too soon, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) last week issued an executive order reopening businesses at full capacity and ending a statewide mask mandate.
He also wrote a provision into the order barring local politicians, including mayors and county judges, from implementing their own mask rules.
But Adler argued that the Austin restrictions are still legal because they came from a local health official instead of his office.
Paxton gave the city and county until 6 p.m. on Wednesday to drop the mandate. But Adler refused.
“I believe leaders need to be clear and unambiguous in their communications and messaging about masking,” Adler said in a statement. “Masks work! The Governor and Attorney General are simply wrong.”
Meanwhile, public health officials have urged Texans to continue wearing masks despite the relaxed statewide restrictions.
“Wearing a face covering is one of the easiest ways to slow the transmission of disease in our community,” Mark Escott, the interim Austin-Travis County health authority, said in a statement on Tuesday. “While vaccine administration is underway, we are still not in a place of herd immunity and need people to wear face coverings in public and around non-household members so we can avoid another surge of cases.”