While Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s public health views are being scrutinized after Donald Trump tapped him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the Supreme Court just rejected an appeal he pressed on the subject.
On Wednesday, Justice Elena Kagan turned aside a bid from Kennedy and his Children’s Health Defense group to halt investigations of doctors in Washington state over Covid-19 misinformation. Kagan denied the application without seeking a response from state officials or referring the matter to her colleagues, suggesting she thought it didn’t warrant further consideration. (Justice Samuel Alito took similar solo action last month when he rejected an appeal from independent presidential candidate Cornel West ahead of the election.)
Lower federal courts had refused to side with Kennedy, with a federal trial court rejecting his constitutional claims as meritless.
“The Court should speak clearly and decisively to state actors, professional organizations, other non-state actors, and the national media: Public speech does not lose its constitutional protection from government action simply because it is uttered by a healthcare professional, even if it is at odds with medical orthodoxy,” Kennedy and his colleagues wrote in their injunction application to Kagan, who fields emergency requests from the Washington region.Lower federal courts had refused to side with Kennedy, with a federal trial court rejecting his constitutional claims as meritless.
“Without immediate relief,” the applicants wrote to Kagan, “this national misconception of the governments’ power to suppress dissenting views will continue unchecked, harming both speakers and the public, undermining the marketplace of ideas, and chilling vital public discourse at a time when it is most needed.”
The rejection is Kennedy’s latest from the high court, which previously blocked the former independent presidential candidate from getting off swing-state ballots and on New York’s ballot after he suspended his campaign and announced his support for Trump. If Kennedy becomes Trump’s HHS secretary, the justices could be seeing more appeals featuring his name in an official capacity as head of the department.
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