INDIANAPOLIS (AP)
-- Indiana’s attorney general believes the governor has overstepped his
authority in issuing a statewide face mask mandate and that only the
Legislature can make violations a criminal offense.
Republican Attorney
General Curtis Hill issued an advisory opinion Wednesday night, just hours
after GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb announced the mask order taking effect Monday to
help slow the coronavirus spread.
Hill’s opinion
responded to a request from state Senate majority leader Mark Messmer of
Jasper and four other Republican senators about Holcomb’s legal authority to
impose a mask mandate.
The opinion, which
does not block the governor’s action, said the state’s emergency law doesn’t
give Holcomb authority for the mask mandate without the consent of the
Legislature. Hill said the governor should call the Legislature back into
session.
“By this point in
the pandemic -- more than four months since the emergency declaration --
it’s time to show some deference to the branch of government actually
charged by our state constitution with the responsibility for enacting
laws,” Hill said in a statement.
Holcomb said
Thursday he believed he had the necessary authority and wasn’t worried about
the mask order being challenged in court.
“I don’t live under
the threat of lawsuit,” Holcomb said. “We do our research before we speak.”
Hill is on his way
out of office after failing to win the Republican nomination for reelection
earlier this month. Holcomb opposed Hill’s bid and had called for him to
resign over allegations that he drunkenly groped a state lawmaker and three
other women during a party.