As Missouri's attorney general, Eric Schmitt's job on paper is primarily to defend the state's interests in legal matters. But to watch how he has approached that job in recent months, Missourians would think his main duty is to stamp out medically valid pandemic safety policies wherever they might sprout. Whether it's a school board member trying to protect students, a city leader trying to protect the local citizenry, or a medical patient whose life could be put at risk by an unvaccinated health care worker, Schmitt has sided against them in court, using Missourians' tax dollars to do it.

Schmitt says he is standing up to big-government intrusion by Washington regarding vaccine mandates — but then he turns around and wields the power of the state to overrule local leaders and school officials on mask mandates, imposing his own judgment (and his own political interests) in place of both local decision-making and medical science. There is nothing conservative about this litigious campaign of anti-science demagoguery. Schmitt is pandering to the irrational Right, pure and simple, in his attempt to win next year's Republican U.S. Senate primary.

Schmitt reached a new low last week, directly appealing to parents to report to his office any school districts that enforce mask policies, which he unilaterally decrees to be in violation of a court order. This extralegal stunt — reminiscent of the tactics of dictatorial strongmen who pit their citizens as informants against one another — ignores the fact that it's not at all clear that the court's order applies to mask policies imposed by elected school boards.

Schmitt's schtick has become so transparent and extreme that it's fair to ask: How many Missouri lives is he willing to risk to win that Senate seat? We encourage readers not merely to write letters to the editor but to call and email Schmitt's office and ask that question themselves. The contact information is provided with this editorial.

Schmitt, a former state legislator, was once regarded as a reasonable Republican who could work across the aisle. That was before he sought the Senate nomination of a state party that has become radicalized beyond recognition.

In his three years as attorney general, Schmitt's multiple, often quixotic lawsuits have centered on such partisan dog-whistles as banning critical race theory (which isn't taught in Missouri schools), sealing the Mexican border (which doesn't touch Missouri) and promoting former President Donald Trump's big lie of election fraud in swing states (which Missouri isn't). It's almost like Schmitt is so focused on his quest for federal office that he doesn't remember what his job is, or even what state he's in.

But first and foremost, Schmitt's campaign strategy is to oppose responsible pandemic safety measures — and to make sure members of the extreme Right see him doing that.

He has filed or joined three multistate lawsuits against the Biden administration's vaccine-mandate policies. They aren't all equal in their irrationality. Requiring that employees of major companies and federal government contractors be either vaccinated or tested makes sense to us, but there is at least room for rational debate there. Where is the rational debate when someone sues, as Schmitt has, to prevent a requirement that health care workers — health care workers! — be vaccinated?

It's as if Schmitt is welcoming the spread of death across the state.

Then there's what Schmitt is doing to schools in Missouri. Children in close quarters are a breeding ground for the virus. Schmitt's litigation to ban classroom mask requirements endangers kids' health and possibly the lives of their family members. There's no other way of putting that.

A Cole County Circuit Court judge last month ruled in a separate case that mask and quarantine orders issued by state health officials violate the state constitution's separation of powers. Some school districts contend the ruling doesn't apply to them because their mask orders were created under state statutes or by elected school boards, which the judge's ruling didn't address.

Yet, even as that argument remains unresolved, Schmitt last week tweeted his outrageous call for parents to act as informants against school districts that are keeping their mask mandates in place until there is more clarity on the ruling.

Schmitt's office said Thursday it had followed up with cease-and-desist letters to dozens of districts ordering them to drop their mask rules — a coercive and blatant abuse of his power based on his own disputed interpretation of the court's ruling.

"Parents are sick and tired of the stonewalling, and so are we," Schmitt tweeted, using the kind of us-versus-them language that increasingly peppers his public pronouncements. School board meetings around the state are already powder kegs of tension, and this move by the state attorney general to essentially assign parents as vigilante posses can only make it worse.

This Editorial Board was hesitant to comment on the latest antics of this state's self-serving, irresponsible attorney general because his overriding goal is obviously to keep his name in the news and to promote a more-extremist-than-thou image against his GOP primary competitors. As much as we would like to deny him the attention he craves, it's crucial to shine a light on the danger he poses. There is no shortage of GOP candidates today who belong nowhere near the United States Senate, but Schmitt's potentially deadly campaign to undermine science makes him uniquely unacceptable.

The fact is, vaccine mandates and other public health imperatives have been around for generations, particularly in schools. Schmitt's politically driven histrionics aside, they're nothing new in current efforts to stop the pandemic's spread. Schmitt's increasingly shrill campaign to villainize those who are earnestly attempting to control the virus is the most cynical and dangerous game being played anywhere in Missouri politics today.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Photo credit: 12019 at Pixabay