The North Carolina Senate voted along party lines Wednesday to ban anyone from wearing masks in public for health reasons, following an emotional debate about the wisdom of the proposal.
Republican supporters of the ban said it would help police crack down on protesters who wear masks — which some lawmakers called a growing concern, saying demonstrators are abusing Covid-19 pandemic-era norms to wear masks that hide their identities.
"It's about time that the craziness is at least slowed down, if not literally stopped," said bill sponsor Buck Newton, R-Wilson.
The proposal faced strong opposition from Democratic lawmakers, community activists, and advocates for people with health issues — who are concerned about the consequences of the proposal.
House Bill 237 would ban everyone, not just protesters, from wearing masks in public for medical reasons if it becomes law. It passed 30-15, with every Republican in favor and every Democrat opposed.
"It's unconscionable," said Sen. Lisa Grafstein, D-Wake.
On Wednesday Sen. Danny Britt, R-Robeson, said he thinks there's a way to interpret the law to argue that it would still be legal to wear a mask for legitimate health reasons — even though the bill would eliminate the state law that provides those protections.
Democrats weren't convinced. One lawmaker suggested there's another motive behind the changes.
"Is it really that you find masked chemo patients that threatening? Something about them makes you really angry?" asked Sen. Natasha Marcus, D-Mecklenburg. "Or is this, more likely, a desire to score some political points with the anti-mask crowd during an election year, at the expense of vulnerable people?"
Also passing the Senate Wednesday were bills that would:
- Modernize sex crime laws to address new technologies like artificial intelligence.
- Increase toll road late fees by 50%.
- Allow billboard companies to cut down more trees on the roadside.
- Automatically charge 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in many felony cases, a partial reversal of juvenile justice reforms that went into effect in 2019.
Each of the bills, after passing the Senate Wednesday, now need to also win approval by the state House before being sent to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who could sign or veto them.
Mask ban
Democratic lawmakers proposed different ways to amend the anti-mask bill to protect people who want to wear masks for health concerns. Republicans shot each of those proposals down, without explaining their opposition.
Sen. Sydney Batch, D-Wake, is a cancer survivor. She spoke about how her husband and children wore masks to protect her while she was undergoing treatment and had a weakened immune system because of it.
"This bill criminalizes their behavior, and mine," she said. "... We talk a lot about freedoms in this chamber. I hear it all the time. I should have the freedom — my children and my husband should have the freedom — to wear masks in order to protect and save my life, without fear of being arrested and charged."
Batch and Grafstein each proposed amending the bill in ways they said would still give police the power that Republicans have said they want, to crack down on masked protesters, but to add back in legal protections for people who wear masks for public health reasons.
A third Wake County Democrat, Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, proposed amending the bill to ban hate groups — he specifically mentioned the Ku Klux Klan and Proud Boys — from being allowed to wear masks in public, which the law currently allows them to petition for. His amendment also would've required state law enforcement officials do more to track hate groups. Like the other amendments, Republican lawmakers shot it down with no debate or explanation.
Protesters who wear masks or block traffic should face harsher penalties: NC lawmakers
As Republicans have shrugged off Democrats' concerns, they've said they trust police officers not to abuse the power to arrest anyone for wearing a surgical mask out in public. Newton said Tuesday that it wasn't intended to "prosecute granny for wearing a mask in the Walmart."
But there's no reason to create the potential for abuses in the first place, multiple Democrats said. Several cited concerns that police could use the new anti-mask changes to more easily search or detain people who are just trying to go about their day.
Newton responded to those concerns Wednesday by saying that the public health exceptions were only passed during the Covid-19 pandemic — yet there's no record of anyone in North Carolina ever being arrested for masking for health reasons before then, even though it was technically illegal.
He also added that if he had been in the legislature in 2020, he would've voted against allowing people to wear masks for public health reasons in the first place.
Juvenile justice changes
Also on Wednesday, the Senate voted to pass House Bill 198 — raising toll road late fees, expanding billboard companies' power to cut trees and other legislative requests from the Department of Transportation — plus House Bill 591, modernizing sex crimes. It includes new bans on using artificial intelligence to create nude images in certain circ*mstances, to ban sex dolls that look like children, and to outlaw "sexual extortion" threats of publicizing someone's private photos.
Both of those passed with no debate; the sex crimes bill won unanimous support and the transportation changes were near-unanimous. But another bill with more debate was House Bill 834, making changes to juvenile justice laws.
Republicans say they aren't intending to roll back the state's landmark "Raise the Age" juvenile justice reform that went into effect in 2019. But the bill has numerous critics who say it will do exactly that.
On Wednesday in the Senate, however, nearly all Democrats joined every Republican in voting to approve the change. It passed 41-4.
Supporters of the juvenile justice system cite studies showing it works better than the adult prison system to stop people from returning to criminal activities once they finish serving their sentence. The bill's supporters, led by Britt, say oftentimes adult prisons are the better way to punish teenage offenders who commit violent crimes.
"This just helps the process go smoother with juveniles that are involved in violent crimes," Britt said during Wednesday's debate, noting that there's also a provision in the bill to create a new crime for adults who entice minors to commit crimes.
"Where this occurs, mostly, is we have older gang members recruiting children to commit violent crimes, knowing that a 15-, 16-, 17-year-old, a 14-year-old, is less likely to face any type of justice."
