Personnel update: Kim Boswell to serve as Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Mental Health
Gov. Kay Ivey announced Monday that Lynn Beshear will retire as Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Mental Health (ADMH) effective December 16, 2020. Beshear was appointed to the position in July 2017. Ivey has hired Kim Boswell as Beshear’s replacement. “When Lynn was appointed, I knew that she would approach her role always thinking of what is best for the people of Alabama,” Governor Ivey stated. “She has created a collaborative team approach within the Alabama Department of Mental Health to solve intricate problems regarding delivery of services for mental illness, substance abuse disorder, and intellectual disability. I am truly grateful for her service to our state and wish her the best in her next chapter.” Beshear stated, “It has been an honor to serve as the Commissioner of the department. I am stepping into the next chapter of my life, proud of the accomplishments of the department and am incredibly honored to have worked with such dedicated individuals who are committed to improving the lives of others. I profoundly thank Governor Ivey for her trust in me these last three years and have no doubt the department will continue to change the lives of the people of Alabama for the better.” Under Commissioner Beshear’s leadership, the ADMH launched Stepping Up Alabama, a program to reduce the number of individuals in jail with mental illness. Additionally, three mental health crisis centers were announced as crisis diversion centers, and there was the expansion of school-based mental health and infant and early childhood services during her tenure. Boswell currently works as Chief of Staff for Commissioner Beshear and has over 36 years of experience working with individuals with mental illness, substance abuse disorders, and developmental disabilities. She has been an Associate Commissioner for Administration and Director of Human Services for the Alabama Department of Mental Health. Boswell received a Bachelor of Social Work from The University of Alabama Birmingham and a Master of Social Work from Florida State University, with a specialization in planning and program evaluation. “I’m pleased to announce Kim Boswell as Commissioner for the Alabama Department of Mental Health,” Governor Ivey commented. “She has spent the entirety of her professional career devoted to helping struggling individuals, and I appreciate her willingness to serve in this new capacity. Her background as a mental health provider as well as administrator makes her uniquely qualified.”
Bradley Byrne: A timely victory for the right to freely exercise our faith
On the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling, which is a very positive signal for the rights of people of faith to freely exercise that faith. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had issued a “Cluster Initiative” which used color-coded restrictions on large gatherings in certain parts of New York City. These restrictions were challenged in court by the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Jewish synagogues as an invalid restriction on citizens’ rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. The Supreme Court issued an injunction against applying Governor Cuomo’s order to gatherings at houses of worship. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a scathing concurring opinion in which he said, “there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutters churches, synagogues and mosques.” Much of the press focused on the fact that this was the first case in which Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s vote was necessary to achieve a majority because Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the dissenters as he believed the ruling was premature. His decision was unsurprising as he had voted with the liberals on the Court against acting on earlier COVID restrictions. It was also in keeping with his preference to avoid judicial intervention in matters which he doesn’t consider to be procedurally ripe. I have great respect for Justice Roberts but disagree with his decision in this case and am glad the majority saw fit to issue the injunction. When President Donald Trump nominated Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett, liberals and their news media allies howled that these new justices’ presence on the Court would provide the votes to strike down the Affordable Care Act and reverse Roe v. Wade. I never bought that line, and it appears from oral arguments in the Affordable Care Act case presently before the Court that there is not a majority to do the former. I did believe that these two new justices, along with other Republican nominated justices, would take a much broader view of the Free Exercise Clause and a much narrower view of the statutory authorization for government regulation. This new case confirms that the Court has indeed adopted an expanded application of the Free Exercise Clause. Why is this so timely and so important? America’s cultural elites have adopted a hostility to faith, people of faith, and people acting out their faith. They used to be willing to let people do as they pleased in their houses of worship while jumping at the chance to criticize and restrict them if they actually attempted to exercise their beliefs outside of worship. Governor Cuomo’s order, and those of many other Democrat governors and mayors, demonstrate that the elites now want to regulate what happens inside houses of worship. The First Amendment, like the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights, was passed by the First Congress in 1789, and the states ratified them in 1791. Passage of these amendments was demanded by several of the states in the ratification conventions on the original Constitution. These amendments comprise fundamental law, conferring primary rights on the people of this nation. As to religion, the First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It was applied to state and local governments in the 20th century by courts invoking the Fourteenth Amendment. The first clause, known as the Establishment Clause, was intended as a prohibition on a government established church as the Church of England was at the time of the Revolution and is today. That clause has been expanded judicially to prohibit any government action favoring a particular religious view. Until recently, the Free Exercise Clause has been rarely invoked. But actions by state and local governments in more recent times to control people of faith in their efforts to live out their faith have made the Free Exercise Clause a new judicial battleground, and this new majority on the Supreme Court has arrived just in time to deliver last week’s important opinion. I predict more decisions in the future, applying the clause to inappropriate government action. Note the use of the word “exercise.” It denotes action and not just belief. That First Congress was acutely aware of the limitations on worship and action by the British government on behalf of the Church of England. Indeed, many of their ancestors fled to America to escape government dictates on religion. They also knew the ugly history of the Puritan Protectorate government in 17th century England which tried to limit all sorts of conduct – even celebrating Christmas. Congress and the ratifying states made it clear in the Free Exercise Clause that government in this country has no such power. As I have seen in the Congresses I have served in over the last several years, many members have lost that understanding. Indeed, they have attempted to repeal the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which passed with near unanimity in the 1990s. They see religious rights as secondary, not primary. Governor Cuomo and his Democrat colleagues in statehouses and mayors’ offices around the U.S. do too. Now, the new majority on the Supreme Court has stepped up to stop the slide away from religious freedom. It’s about time, and I trust they will continue to do so. Congressman Bradley Byrne currently represents Alabama’s 1st congressional district.
John Meigs: Physicians are no longer on the front lines of this pandemic. You are.
State Health Officer is a difficult role to fill, especially this year. While partisanship and conspiracies continue to divide us, it is the job of the State Health Officer to make decisions for the good of all people throughout Alabama. This is exactly what Dr. Scott Harris has done for Alabamians during (and before) the COVID-19 pandemic. After reading a recent article about Dr. Harris, I was appalled but not surprised by the fact that he has received death threats over mask mandates and other preventative measures to slow the spread of COVID-19. Governor Kay Ivey enacted the first mask mandate on July 16, 2020, at the recommendation of Dr. Harris and others. After the initial mandate, Alabama’s case average and death rates quickly fell. Neighboring states without mask mandates – including Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee – all continued to rise above Alabama’s average. As President of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, I would like to proudly declare my support of Dr. Harris and Governor Ivey in regard to the mask ordinance, social distancing guidelines, and other measures to protect the citizens of Alabama. Science and data have shown us time and time again that these guidelines work. That being said, why are there still Alabamians who push against these life-saving initiatives? While appealing to a sense of personal responsibility should be effective enough, it has proved not to be. What happens when personal responsibility is not enough, and people are endangering others? Mask mandates. Social distancing guidelines. Occupancy limitations. Physicians and other health care providers have worked tirelessly to serve our patients, even at the cost of our own health and safety. What if I told you that we are no longer on the front lines of this pandemic, but you are? You have the power and capability to stop the spread of the Coronavirus that has taken over 3,450 lives in Alabama and 1.39 million lives worldwide. All you have to do to potentially save a life is to wear a mask in public, socially distance, and wash your hands. These simple actions not only save lives but can also help our physicians and hospital systems not get overwhelmed with patients. You can help keep your family and our families safe at the same time. As we head into this holiday season, we can’t require people to keep themselves safe, but we are asking them to keep other people safe. Many people could be infected and transmit the disease to others without even knowing they are sick. I just hope that we can recontextualize the mask mandate and see it as a simple act of kindness to protect those around you. It seems like the least we can do for our families, friends, loved ones, physicians, nurses, and communities as a whole. John Meigs Jr. is the President of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama and graduated from the University of South Alabama College of Medicine in 1979.
Personnel update: Congressman-elect Jerry Carl announces three staff hires
Jerry Carl will take office for Alabama’s 1st Congressional District in January and announced today he has hired leaders for three key staff positions. Chad Carlough will serve as Carl’s Chief of Staff, Elizabeth Roney will work as District Director, and Zach Weidlich will fill the Communications Director position. “I am proud to announce Chad Carlough will serve as my Chief of Staff when I take office January 3, 2021. Chad has a wide breadth of experience on Capitol Hill, previously holding several roles in Congressman Bradley Byrne’s office, including Chief of Staff. I have the utmost confidence in Chad’s character and his ability, and I am excited to have him on board,” stated Carl. “I’m also pleased to announce Elizabeth Roney will continue serving as District Director. Prior to serving as Congressman Byrne’s District Director, Elizabeth worked in the offices of both Congressman Sonny Callahan and Congressman Jo Bonner. Elizabeth’s long-standing experience will ensure a smooth transition from Congressman Byrne’s office to mine,” Carl continued. “Zach Weidlich will be joining our team as well on January 3rd as the Communications Director for my office. Zach did a great job running my campaign the last two years, and I am confident that he will continue to be an asset in my office.” On Twitter, Carl stated, “I’m proud of the team I’ve assembled. We are ready to get to work and fight for the needs of our District!” I’m proud of the team I’ve assembled. We are ready to get to work and fight for the needs of our district! #al01 #alpolitics https://t.co/IxUlcZv7Hw — Jerry Carl (@CarlForAlabama) November 30, 2020 Weidlich posted on Twitter, stating, “We are excited about the team that has been assembled, and we are ready to hit the ground running on January 3rd.” We are excited about the team that has been assembled and we are ready to hit the ground running on January 3rd. https://t.co/CCM9BwpY2t — Zach Weidlich (@zach_wide) November 30, 2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci: U.S. may see ‘surge upon surge’ of virus in weeks ahead
The nation’s top infectious disease expert said Sunday that the U.S. may see “surge upon a surge” of the coronavirus in the weeks after Thanksgiving, and he does not expect current recommendations around social distancing to be relaxed before Christmas. Meanwhile, in a major reversal, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio said the nation’s largest school system will reopen to in-person learning and increase the number of days a week many children attend class. The announcement came just 11 days after the Democratic mayor said schools would shut down because of rising COVID-19 cases. “We feel confident that we can keep schools safe,” he said. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC’s “This Week” that the level of infection in the U.S. would not “all of a sudden turn around.” “So clearly in the next few weeks, we’re going to have the same sort of thing. And perhaps even two or three weeks down the line … we may see a surge upon a surge,” he said. Fauci addressed the school issue, saying that spread “among children and from children is not really very big at all, not like one would have suspected. So let’s try to get the kids back, but let’s try to mitigate the things that maintain and just push the kind of community spread that we’re trying to avoid,” he said. Fauci also appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he made similar remarks, adding that it’s “not too late” for people traveling home after Thanksgiving to help curb the virus by wearing masks, staying distant from others, and avoiding large groups of people. The number of new COVID-19 cases reported in the United States topped 200,000 for the first time Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Since January, when the first infections were reported in the U.S., the nation’s total number of cases has surpassed 13 million. More than 265,000 people have died. Fauci said the arrival of vaccines offers a “light at the end of the tunnel.” This coming week, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to discuss a rollout of the vaccine, he said. He added that President-elect Joe Biden should focus on distributing vaccines in an “efficient and equitable way.” Fauci also said he planned to push the new administration for a rigorous testing program. Health care workers will likely be among the first to get the vaccine, with the first vaccinations happening before the end of December, followed by many more in January, February, and March, he said. “So if we can hang together as a country and do these kinds of things to blunt these surges until we get a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated, we can get through this,” Fauci said. Other experts agreed that the coming weeks would be difficult, especially since so many traveled over the holiday and held in-person dinners indoors. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Americans who traveled this past week should try to avoid people over 65. She said that those who were around others for Thanksgiving “have to assume that you were exposed and you became infected and you really need to get tested in the next week.” Meanwhile, a busy travel weekend continued, despite warnings for Americans to stay close to home and limit their holiday gatherings. Aside from the Thanksgiving holiday itself, anywhere from 800,000 to more than 1 million travelers made their way through U.S. airport checkpoints on any day during the past week, according to Transportation Security Administration statistics. That’s a far cry from the 2.3 to 2.6 million seen daily last year. But it far surpasses the number of travelers early in the pandemic, when daily totals fell below 100,000 on some spring days. More COVID-19 restrictions were in store for California starting Monday. Los Angeles County will impose a lockdown calling for its 10 million residents to stay home. Santa Clara County, which includes San Jose, is banning all high school, collegiate, and professional sports and imposing a quarantine for anyone traveling into the region from more than 150 miles away. Back in New York, some elementary schools and pre-kindergarten programs will resume classes Dec. 7, a week from Monday, the mayor said. Others will take longer to reopen. The plan for reopening middle and high schools is still being developed, de Blasio said. About 190,000 students will be eligible to return to classrooms in the first round of reopening, just a fraction of the more than 1 million total pupils in the system. The great majority of parents have opted to have their kids learn remotely by computer. De Blasio said that many of those returning in person will be able to attend five days of class a week, up from one to three days previously. Elementary school students attending in person will be required to undergo frequent testing for the virus. Previously, the city set a target of testing 20% of teachers and students in each school building once a month. Now the testing will be weekly. The mayor said the city was doing away with its previous trigger for closing schools, which was when 3% or more of the virus tests conducted in the city over a seven-day period came back positive. New York exceeded that threshold early in November, and infections have slightly worsened since then. More than 9,300 residents have tested positive for the virus over the past seven days. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump ‘ashamed’ to have endorsed Republican Georgia governor
President Donald Trump said Sunday he was “ashamed” for endorsing the Republican governor of Georgia after he lost in the state to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has seethed over losing the southern state, which hadn’t voted for a Democrat for president in nearly 30 years. In January, the state will decide whether the GOP retains control of the U.S. Senate when voters decide two run-off Senate races. Trump said on Fox News that Gov. Brian Kemp has “done absolutely nothing” to question the state’s results. Trump has made baseless accusations that illegal votes cost him the election in Georgia and beyond. His legal challenges have failed in several states. Trump backed Kemp’s campaign in 2018, boasting that his “full endorsement” helped him edge rising Democrat Stacey Abrams. In this month’s presidential contest, Biden beat Trump by about 12,670 votes. Democrats hope for two other upset victories in twin Senate races on Jan. 5 against Republican office holders. That would deny Republicans their majority, keeping the GOP with 50 seats, while Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be available for tie-breaking votes. Democrat Jon Ossoff is challenging Sen. David Perdue while Rev. Raphael Warnock takes on Sen. Kelly Loeffler. No candidate won at least 50% of the vote share in this month’s election, leading to the head-to-head runoffs. Ossoff said Sunday that a Republican-controlled Senate will hit the Biden administration with the same “obstructionism” it mounted against former President Barack Obama. “It will be paralysis, partisan trench warfare,” he told CNN. “At a moment of crisis, when we need strong action.” Loeffler on Fox News said GOP victories would be a “firewall to socialism” and the Democratic policies of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It is Loeffler’s first election cycle after Gov. Kemp appointed her to the seat in January when her predecessor resigned. Trump on Saturday plans to arrive in the state he lost to campaign for the GOP incumbents. “We’re making sure that Georgians are fired up to turn out to vote,” Loeffler said. “If we vote, we will win this election.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Completed Wisconsin recount confirms Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump
Wisconsin finished a recount of its presidential results on Sunday, confirming Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump in the key battleground state. Trump vowed to challenge the outcome in court even before the recount concluded. Dane County was the second and last county to finish its recount, reporting a 45-vote gain for Trump. Milwaukee County, the state’s other big and overwhelmingly liberal county targeted in a recount that Trump paid $3 million for, reported its results Friday, a 132-vote gain for Biden. Taken together, the two counties barely budged Biden’s winning margin of about 20,600 votes, giving the winner a net gain of 87 votes. “As we have said, the recount only served to reaffirm Joe Biden’s victory in Wisconsin,” Danielle Melfi, who led Biden’s campaign in Wisconsin, said in a statement to The Associated Press. Trump campaign spokeswoman Jenna Ellis said in a statement that the Wisconsin recounts have “revealed serious issues” about whether the ballots were legal, but she offered no specific details to validate her claim. “As we have said from the very beginning, we want every legal vote, and only legal votes to be counted, and we will continue to uphold our promise to the American people to fight for a free and fair election,” Ellis said. With no precedent for overturning a result as large as Biden’s, Trump was widely expected to head to court once the recount was finished. His campaign challenged thousands of absentee ballots during the recount, and even before it was complete, Trump tweeted that he would sue. “The Wisconsin recount is not about finding mistakes in the count, it is about finding people who have voted illegally, and that case will be brought after the recount is over, on Monday or Tuesday,” Trump tweeted on Saturday. “We have found many illegal votes. Stay tuned!” The deadline to certify the vote is Tuesday. Certification is done by the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Election Commission, which is bipartisan. The Wisconsin Voters Alliance, a conservative group, has already filed a lawsuit against state election officials seeking to block certification of the results. It makes many of the claims Trump is expected to make. Gov. Tony Evers’ attorneys have asked the state Supreme Court to dismiss the suit. Evers, a Democrat, said the complaint is a “mishmash of legal distortions” that uses factual misrepresentations in an attempt to take voting rights away from millions of Wisconsin residents. Another suit filed over the weekend by Wisconsin resident Dean Mueller argues that ballots placed in drop boxes are illegal and must not be counted. Trump’s attorneys have complained about absentee ballots where voters identified themselves as “indefinitely confined,” allowing them to cast an absentee ballot without showing a photo ID; ballots that have a certification envelope with two different ink colors, indicating a poll worker may have helped complete it; and absentee ballots that don’t have a separate written record for its request, such as in-person absentee ballots. Election officials in the two counties counted those ballots during the recount but marked them as exhibits at the request of the Trump campaign. Trump’s campaign has already failed elsewhere in court without proof of widespread fraud, which experts widely agree doesn’t exist. Trump’s legal challenges have failed in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
