(The hill) – The North Carolina State Senate voted along party lines Wednesday to ban everyone from wearing masks in public, including for health reasons.
Republican supporters of the ban said it would support law enforcement crack down on protesters who wear masks. They say demonstrators are abusing COVID-19 pandemic-era practices to hide their identities after a wave of pro-Palestinian protests across the country and at universities in North Carolina.
The bill goes even further, repealing an exemption that states have had in place since the start of the pandemic allowing people to wear masks in public for health and safety reasons.
Thirty senators voted in favor House Bill 237while 15 were against and five were absent.
Democrats expressed concerns about the bill, particularly for those who are immunocompromised or who may want to continue wearing masks during cancer treatments. WRAL News reported.
State Senator Sydney Batch (D) is a cancer survivor and told her fellow senators how her family wore masks during treatment to protect her and her weakened immune system.
She and other Democrats suggested ways to amend the bill so police could still crack down on protesters but still have legal protections over health concerns, but they were shot down, the outlet reported.
Republican Sen. Buck Newton dismissed the concerns, saying no one saw “Grandma get arrested at Walmart before the COVID crisis” and believes law enforcement will operate “common sense” in applying the law. The Associated Press reported.
The AP noted that the state’s general masking laws dated back to the 1950s and sought to curb membership in the Ku Klux Klan, when the state enacted a public masking ban.
Under the billIf a person is arrested for protesting while wearing a mask, it would raise the classification of a person’s crime, be it a misdemeanor or a felony, one class higher.
It now lands on Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk. Cooper, a Democrat, could veto the bill, but the North Carolina Republican Party has a supermajority and can override the expected veto.
