In a bold act of defiance, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has moved on to withhold monthly funding from officials at two school districts that enacted mask mandates despite a ruling from a local judge last Friday that dismissed DeSantis’ punitive executive order as being “without legal merit.”

Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said that his agency will continue to “fight to protect parents' rights to make health care decisions for their children.” He accused unspecified politicians of ignoring their oath of office by continuing to fight back against their policies.

DeSantis, who is running for re-election in 2022, broke his weekend-long silence Monday, saying the ruling by Leon County Judge John Cooper would be appealed. He disagreed with Cooper’s characterization of his executive order that aimed to punish school district officials who initiated mask mandates, and expressed confidence in the state’s counterarguments.

“I think we have really good grounds to appeal in terms of the First District Court of Appeal,” DeSantis said during a stop in Jacksonville.

The governor added that he believed that school districts had a right to have their own policies, but held that parents should have the right to opt out of them if they felt it was in the best interest of their children to do so. He accused the school officials and the court of taking away that right.

The New York Times reports it is not immediately clear how DeSantis’ administration plans to withhold any salaries from district officials because the state does not actually pay them. Cocoran, the Education Commissioner, previously recommended that funds equivalent to the salaries of school board members and superintendents could be deducted.

Florida’s battle over mask mandates takes place with a surging number of COVID-19 infections as its backdrop. The state experienced 149,017 new cases last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) data tracker tool. A rise in case numbers has left shortages in hospital beds, oxygen supplies, and even water in the state of 21 million people.

The state has also become the center of a struggle between DeSantis and President Joe Biden’s administration over public health. Biden has urged DeSantis to “get out of the way” when it comes to protecting the health of Floridians, and his administration has instructed school districts that if they lose state funding they should seek out federal stimulus funds to make up for any shortfall.

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