RALEIGH, N.C. — Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are moving ahead with their plan to repeal a pandemic-era law that allowed the wearing of masks in public for health reasons, a move sparked in part by demonstrations against the war in Gaza that also included masked demonstrators set up camp. college campuses.
The legislation cleared the Senate on a 30-15 vote along party lines on Wednesday, despite several attempts by Senate Democrats to amend the bill. The bill, which would impose penalties for anyone wearing a mask while committing a crime, including arrested protesters, could still be amended if it heads back to the House.
Opponents of the bill say it endangers the health of those wearing masks for safety reasons. But those who support the legislation say it is a necessary response to the demonstrations, including the one at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that escalated into police clashes and arrests. The bill also further criminalizes blocking roads or emergency vehicles for a protest, which has occurred during pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Raleigh and Durham.
“It’s time for this madness to be stopped, at least slowed down, if not stopped,” Republican Sen. Buck Newton of Wilson County, who introduced the bill, said on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Most of the opposition to the bill focused on the elimination of health and safety exemptions for wearing a mask in public. The health exemption was added at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, largely along bipartisan lines.
This deletion would return public masking rules to their pre-pandemic form, which were established in 1953 to address another problem: limiting Ku Klux Klan activity in North Carolina, according to a 2012 book from sociology professor David Cunningham of Washington University in St. Louis. .
Since the pandemic, masks have become a partisan flashpoint — and the Senate debate over whether the bill would make it illegal to wear masks for health purposes was no different.
Democratic lawmakers reiterated concerns about how lifting protections for people who choose to mask up for their health could put immunocompromised North Carolinians at risk of breaking the law. Legislative staff said at a committee meeting Tuesday that masking for health purposes would violate the law.
“This bill turns careful people into criminals,” Democratic Sen. Natasha Marcus of Mecklenburg County said in the Senate. “It’s a bad law.”
Simone Hetherington, an immunocompromised person who spoke at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, said masking is one of the few ways she can protect herself from illness and fears the law would prevent that practice.
“We live in different times and I get harassed,” Hetherington said about wearing her mask. “All it takes is one bad actor.”
But Republican lawmakers continued to express doubt that anyone would get into legal trouble for masking due to health concerns, and said law enforcement agencies and prosecutors would use their discretion whether to charge anyone. Newton said the bill only focuses on criminalizing masks for the purpose of concealing identity.
“I can smell the politics from the other side of the aisle when they’re scaring people to death over a bill that will only criminalize people who try to hide their identities so they can do something wrong,” Newton said.
Three Senate Democrats proposed amendments to preserve the health exemption and exclude hate groups from masking, but Senate Republicans used a procedural mechanism to block them without going to a vote.
Future changes to the bill could be a possibility, but it would ultimately be up to the House of Representatives, Newton told reporters after the vote. Republican Sen. Danny Britt of Robeson County also said at a previous committee meeting that he expected “some adjustments.”
House Rules Committee Chairman Destin Hall, a Caldwell County House Republican, told reporters before the Senate vote that the House planned to “take a look at it” but that members wanted to crack down on people wearing masks while they commit crimes.
The masking bill will likely go through a few committees before reaching the House floor, which could take one or two weeks, Hall said.