Kemp Sues Bottoms, Atlanta City Council Over Mask Mandate

Updated Thursday at 8:05 p.m.

Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr are suing Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the City Council to block the mask mandate issued late last week.

The confrontation has been brewing since cities across the state began issuing mandates that went further than the governor’s existing executive order. On Wednesday, Kemp voided the orders that at least 15 local governments across the state had adopted..

“This lawsuit is on behalf of the Atlanta business owners and their hardworking employees who are struggling to survive during these difficult times,” Kemp said in a statement Thursday after the lawsuit was announced.

He continued, “We will fight to stop these reckless actions and put people over pandemic politics.”

The state asks a judge to overturn Bottoms’ orders that are more restrictive than Kemp’s, block her from issuing any more such orders, instruct the City Council not to ratify Bottoms’ actions or adopt any ordinances inconsistent with Kemp, to force Bottoms not to make any public statements claiming she has authority that exceeds Kemp’s, and to require city officials to enforce “all provisions” of Kemp’s existing orders.

“A better use of taxpayer money would be to expand testing and contact tracing,” Bottoms said Thursday. “If being sued by the State is what it takes to save lives in Atlanta, then we will see them in

Earlier Thursday, mayors who had issued mask mandates responded to the governor’s new order, signed Wednesday.

Bottoms said the city’s order was still in effect.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, who wrote Wednesday night on Twitter that Kemp “doesn’t give a damn about us,” admitted Thursday that he had been “so angry” when he wrote the comments. But he said Kemp is “overstepping his authority” and cited multiple national retailers who had mandated masks in recent days.

Kemp says he strongly supports mask-wearing to combat the spread of COVID-19 infections. He traveled the state this month to encourage face coverings. But he has maintained for weeks that cities and counties can’t require masks in public places, saying local actions can’t be more or less restrictive than his statewide orders.

An increasing number of other states order residents to wear masks in public, including Alabama, which announced such a ban Wednesday.

As of Thursday afternoon, more than 131,000 cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed in Georgia, with 3,104 deaths from the disease.