North Carolina Proposed Law Would Make It Illegal to Wear Masks in Public

Republican senators in North Carolina on Wednesday approved a bill repealing a pandemic-era law that allowed the wearing of masks in public for health reasons.

The legislative proposal, dubbed “Unmasking Mobs and Criminals” Billit passed along party lines 30-15, despite protests from some Senate Democrats to tweak it by allowing an exception from mask-wearing in public for anyone who feels their health, or the health of their loved ones, is compromised without her.

Most of the focus of the bill is to increase penalties for people who wear a mask during a crime and intentionally block traffic during demonstrations.

“It’s about time the madness was… at least slowed down, if not stopped,” said Republican Sen. Buck Newton, who introduced the bill, on the Senate floor Wednesday.

He could not be reached Thursday afternoon for further comment.

Democratic Sen. Natasha Marcus said Thursday that the bill puts the public’s health at risk and turns otherwise law-abiding people into criminals.

“It is a criminal act to wear a mask to protect yourself or others from communicable diseases,” Marcus said.

She said she has heard from voters who are “desperate for someone to listen to them when they say, ‘I’m immunocompromised, or my family member is, or I’m undergoing chemotherapy or I have a disability.’ There are many reasons why people need, and should have, the freedom to wear a mask to protect themselves.”

The latest version of the bill, which returns to the House, where it was initially proposed and can still be amended, revokes “the health and safety exemption from certain laws prohibiting the use of masks in public.”

“Individuals will no longer be able to wear masks in public for health or safety reasons,” according to the bill.

The ACLU of North Carolina opposes the bill and calls it “deeply troubling, undemocratic and unconstitutional.” The organization said the project is a response to “pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses.”

“When we look at the conduct highlighted by lawmakers in support of the bill – trespassing, assaulting law enforcement, and damaging public property – we know these things are already illegal. about?” said the statement, adding that it is “about suppressing dissent”.

Supporters of the bill have argued that it is needed in response to demonstrations, including those at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, that have turned into police clashes and arrests.

Protests and encampments have sprung up on college campuses since Hamas attacked Israel in October. Although most demonstrations on campuses remained peaceful, there were at times violent clashes between police and protesters, some of whom wore surgical-style masks.

Newton on Tuesday dismissed concerns that the elimination of pandemic-era mask exemptions was overly broad, saying he hopes officials use “common sense.”

“We didn’t see grandma getting arrested at Walmart pre-Covid,” he said when introducing the bill in the state Senate Judiciary Committee.

Marcus said Thursday that it’s not right to put the onus on law enforcement to use discretion.

“This is not how criminal law is supposed to work. It’s either a crime or it isn’t,” she said, adding that Senate passage of the bill by Republicans is nothing more than a culture war vote.

“They are clearly trying to feed their anti-vaccine, anti-science, anti-mask base with red meat with this bill,” Marcus said. “I think it was initially sparked by student protests on various campuses across our state. But the fact is that if they just wanted to address these student protests, they didn’t need to ban masks for everyone.”

The masking bill will likely pass through a few committees before reaching the House floor, which could take a week or two, according to House Rules Committee Chairman Destin Hall.

Republicans have a supermajority in both the House and Senate. Marcus said if the bill passes the House, she expects Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, to veto it.

No one from Cooper’s office could immediately be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.

O health exemption has been added at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic on largely bipartisan lines.

Repeal would return public masking rules to their pre-pandemic form — created in 1953 to address a different issue: limiting Ku Klux Klan activity in North Carolina, according to a 2012 book by Washington University in St. Louis sociology professor David Cunningham.

Stacy Staggs, 47, of Charlotte, has 10-year-old twin daughters who are immunocompromised because they were born prematurely.

One of the twins was on a ventilator for 88 days after birth due to chronic lung disease and underwent a tracheostomy, a procedure to open the windpipe to help her breathe better, Staggs said Thursday.

“Things that hit us a little bit, hit us really hard and take weeks or months to recover from,” Staggs said.

Staggs said he wears a mask, as do his daughters, whenever they are in public.

“I’m beside myself. I can’t imagine that we’ve reached a point where protecting individual health and safety is a criminal act,” she said. “There is nothing criminal about my lifestyle or actions.”