Current:Home > MarketsBill to ban most public mask wearing, including for health reasons, advances in North Carolina -Wealth Momentum Network
Bill to ban most public mask wearing, including for health reasons, advances in North Carolina
View
Date:2025-04-14 05:04:36
Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are pushing forward with their plan to repeal a pandemic-era law that allowed the wearing of masks in public for health reasons, a move spurred in part by demonstrations against the war in Gaza that have included masked protesters camped out on college campuses.
The legislation cleared the Senate on Wednesday in a 30-15 vote along party lines despite several attempts by state Senate Democrats to change the bill. The bill, which would raise penalties for someone who wears a mask while committing a crime, including arrested protesters, could still be altered as it heads back to the House.
Opponents of the bill say it risks the health of those masking for safety reasons. But those backing the legislation say it is a needed response to the demonstrations, including those at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that escalated to police clashes and arrests.
The bill also further criminalizes the blockage of roads or emergency vehicles for a protest, which has occurred during pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Raleigh and Durham.
"It's about time that the craziness is put, at least slowed down, if not put to a stop," Wilson County Republican Sen. Buck Newton, who presented the bill, said on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Most of the pushback against the bill has centered around its removal of health and safety exemptions for wearing a mask in public. The health exemption was added at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic along largely bipartisan lines.
This strikethrough would return public masking rules to their pre-pandemic form, which were 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.
Since the pandemic, masks have become a partisan flashpoint — and Senate debate on if the law would make it illegal to mask for health purposes was no different.
Democratic lawmakers repeated their unease about how removing protections for people who choose to mask for their health could put immunocompromised North Carolinians at risk of breaking the law. Legislative staff said during a Tuesday committee that masking for health purposes would violate the law.
"You're making careful people into criminals with this bill," Democratic Sen. Natasha Marcus of Mecklenburg County said on the Senate floor. "It's a bad law."
Simone Hetherington, an immunocompromised person who spoke during Wednesday's Senate Rules Committee, said masking is one of the only ways she can protect herself from illnesses and fears the law would prevent that practice.
"We live in different times and I do receive harassment," Hetherington said about her mask wearing. "It only takes one bad actor."
But Republican legislators continued to express doubt that someone would get in legal trouble for masking because of health concerns, saying law enforcement and prosecutors would use discretion on whether to charge someone. Newton said the bill focuses on criminalizing masks only for the purpose of concealing one's identity.
"I smell politics on the other side of the aisle when they're scaring people to death about a bill that is only going to criminalize people who are trying to hide their identity so they can do something wrong," Newton said.
Three Senate Democrats proposed amendments to keep the health exemption and exclude hate groups from masking, but Senate Republicans used a procedural mechanism to block them without going up for a vote.
Future changes to the bill could be a possibility, but it would ultimately be up to the House, Newton told reporters after the vote. Robeson County Republican Sen. Danny Britt also said during an earlier committee that he anticipated "some tweaking."
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 members wanted to clamp down on people who wear masks while committing crimes.
The masking bill will likely move through a few committees before hitting the House floor, which could take one or two weeks, Hall said.
- In:
- Health
- Voting
- North Carolina
- COVID-19
- Protests
- Politics
- COVID-19 Pandemic
- Coronavirus
veryGood! (5)
Related
- This was the average Social Security benefit in 2004, and here's what it is now
- Greening of Building Sector on Track to Deliver Trillions in Savings by 2030
- Johnson & Johnson proposes paying $8.9 billion to settle talcum powder lawsuits
- Kim Zolciak’s Daughters Send Her Birthday Love Amid Kroy Biermann Divorce
- Warm inflation data keep S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq under wraps before Fed meeting next week
- How to show up for teens when big emotions arise
- Carmelo Anthony Announces Retirement From NBA After 19 Seasons
- Documents in abortion pill lawsuit raise questions about ex-husband's claims
- A Mississippi company is sentenced for mislabeling cheap seafood as premium local fish
- How Congress Is Cementing Trump’s Anti-Climate Orders into Law
Ranking
- Justice Department, Louisville reach deal after probe prompted by Breonna Taylor killing
- ‘A Death Spiral for Research’: Arctic Scientists Worried as Alaska Universities Face 40% Funding Cut
- A Good Friday funeral in Texas. Baby Halo's parents had few choices in post-Roe Texas
- How Congress Is Cementing Trump’s Anti-Climate Orders into Law
- 'No Good Deed': Who's the killer in the Netflix comedy? And will there be a Season 2?
- 'Cancel culture is a thing.' Jason Aldean addresses 'Small Town' backlash at Friday night show
- Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Faces New Drilling Risk from Congress
- Jersey Shore's Angelina Pivarnick Reveals Why She Won't Have Bridesmaids in Upcoming Wedding
Recommendation
Residents worried after ceiling cracks appear following reroofing works at Jalan Tenaga HDB blocks
Greenland’s Melting: Heat Waves Are Changing the Landscape Before Their Eyes
Oil and Gas Drilling on Federal Land Headed for Faster Approvals, Zinke Says
‘China’s Erin Brockovich’ Goes Global to Hold Chinese Companies Accountable
Trump invites nearly all federal workers to quit now, get paid through September
Oceans Are Melting Glaciers from Below Much Faster than Predicted, Study Finds
This GOP member is urging for action on gun control and abortion rights
Can Planting a Trillion Trees Stop Climate Change? Scientists Say it’s a Lot More Complicated