NC House declines to concur with Senate changes to law governing mask wearing

(Photo by Carol Coelho/Getty Images)

The North Carolina House on Wednesday rejected controversial Senate amendments to a bill that would, among other things, ban wearing masks in public, even for health reasons. 

The bill now goes to a conference committee for possible changes.   

Current state law allows people to wear masks in public for health reasons, an exemption added during the pandemic, but the Senate last week voted to repeal that exemption along party lines.

Both legislative chambers are controlled by Republicans. 

The controversial proposal, which would also increase criminal penalties for those who commit crimes while wearing a mask in public, comes in the wake of protests that have erupted on college campuses across the country in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. 

The bill as it stands will also create a new offense for blocking traffic, a tactic used in some recent protests.   

Rep. Sarah Crawford, D-Wake, called on Wednesday for a religious exemption for face coverings to also be added to the bill. 

“While there is already an exception when it comes to ceremonies and rituals, it seems that that has not applied to the day-to-day wearing a face covering for religious purposes,” Crawford said. “It is my hope that while the conference committee is reconsidering how they might add exemptions to this bill that they will add an exception for the purposes of religious face coverings and also add back in the exemption of wearing masks in the public for health and safety.” 

Sen. Buck Newton (R-Greene, Wayne and Wilson), who sponsored the “committee substitute,” said last week it aims to reinstate a law that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic.   

“We’re really just resetting the law to what it was pre-COVID,” said Newton. “That’s really what the purpose is now, is to deal with organizations and individuals who are intent on breaking the law and hiding their identity, and using the hiding of their identity as a way to intimidate other people — to get away with it.”     

But this week, some House Republicans came out strongly against the proposal, WRAL reported, citing similar concerns raised by Democratic senators last week. 

Last week the Senate rejected three amendments to the bill proposed by Wake County Democratic Senators Sydney Batch, Lisa Grafstein and Jay Chaudhuri. 

Amendments offered by Batch and Grafstein would have reinstated a health reason exemption and allowed mask-wearing unless the wearer was using the mask for criminal purposes.

“We are now trying to turn back time and ignore science and allow individuals who want to protect themselves or to protect their loved ones from wearing a mask,” Batch said last week. “We talk a lot about freedoms in this chamber, I hear it all the time. I should have the freedom, my children should have the freedom and my husband should have the freedom to wear a mask in order to protect and save my life without fear of being arrested and charged with a class one misdemeanor, which is exactly what this bill would do.”

Advocates and organizations including Disability Rights NC, Emancipate NC, and the ACLU of North Carolina spoke out against the bill at last week’s committee hearing, criticizing both the mask ban and provisions that target protesters. 

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