NC House will not concur with bill restricting masks
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – The state House of Representatives will vote Wednesday not to concur with a bill the Senate passed last week that would eliminate the ability to wear a mask in public for health and safety reasons, a spokesperson for House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) said.
Since the Senate vote last week, a few Republican House members have said publicly they won’t support the bill as long as it contains that provision.
Cat Williams, who lives in Charlotte and received a double lung transplant in 2020 after living with cystic fibrosis, said her “heart just really dropped” when she first read the bill.
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She’s immunocompromised and limits where she goes in public. She always wears a mask.
“And for people like me who are immunosuppressed, it’s still very dangerous. Over ten people in my lung transplant program died of COVID,” she said. “If I even get a cold, it puts me in the hospital for two weeks.”
Sen. Buck Newton (R-Wilson) said the purpose of the bill is to address situations like the recent protests on college campuses where some people have work masks to conceal their identities while committing crimes.
“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,” said Newton during the floor debate on the bill.
When CBS 17 attempted to ask Newton on Tuesday about the House pushing back on the bill, he declined to comment.
An email the state Dept. of Health and Human Services sent to state lawmakers ahead of the vote in the Senate noted that officials did not believe the bill would “open anyone up to prosecution” who wears a mask for health reasons.
But, they also said they believe there will be “misunderstanding” among the public about the nuance and that people who wear a mask for health reasons “may be subject to harassment.”
The agency urged lawmaker snot to repeal the public health and safety exception but also offered alternatives the Senate could consider if they still wanted to go forward with their bill. Democrats offered various amendments as well on the floor during last week’s debate, but Republicans tabled all of them without debate.
Advocates for people with disabilities also warned the mask provision in the bill would likely be struck down as unconstitutional.
“I just think it’s ridiculous. The law was working as it was. There was no reason to change the law,” said Williams. “So, I do see this being abused and people calling the police on disabled people because they see them in a mask.”
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