How the Supreme Court's conservatives influenced the ruling against the CDC mask requirement

A federal judge's rejection of the Biden mask mandate for public transportation -- immediately unsettling life for Americans in the air and on the ground -- reflects views that already have emerged on today's Supreme Court.

Conservative justices have been ruling against Covid-19 measures since the start of the pandemic, including in January as the majority invalidated a vaccine requirement for large companies and, last summer, when it struck down a moratorium on evictions.

No high court rulings have involved a federal mask requirement, as Monday's case did, but they have echoed similar distrust for governmental responses to the pandemic.

"The Covid crisis has served as a sort of constitutional stress test and in doing so, it has highlighted disturbing trends that were already present before the virus struck," Justice Samuel Alito said in a November 2020 Federalist Society speech. His assertion captured sentiment continually expressed in his opinions and those by fellow conservatives.

The Supreme Court's vaccine and eviction-related decisions were cited throughout Florida US District Court Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle's decision that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exceeded statutory authority and violated procedures for new agency regulations when it first imposed the mask mandate last year.

The high court has demonstrated skepticism for an array of anti-Covid restrictions, even beyond federal agency requirements. In 2020, it spurned time extensions for mail-in ballots during the presidential election season and lifted capacity requirements at churches and synagogues.