State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-12th, joined four other state Republicans in condemning Pennsylvania’s new mask mandate and the state Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the governor’s COVID-19 disaster proclamation.

The politicians — Reps. Mike Jones, R-93rd, Russ Diamond, R-102nd, Stephanie Borowicz, R-76th, David Rowe, R-85th, and Metcalfe — argued the court’s ruling was an “unprecedented power grab” that perverts the state constitution’s separation of powers.

“This ruling should shake every liberty-loving Pennsylvanian to their core,” they said in a statement. “This is an affront not only to their civil liberties and rights as American citizens, but it is clearly a political calculation made by a liberal court and our Democratic governor on the heels of a presidential election.”

They further upbraided Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine’s Thursday mask rescript, asking rhetorically if “the governor has officially ended all possibility of being seen as credible.”

The lawmakers pledged they would work to “see the governor’s edicts evaporate, just like COVID-19 by all indications is on a trajectory to do so.”