RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have reached a compromise on a bill that now maintains a health exemption for masking in public while preventing the use of masks during criminal activity, but only one chamber chose to consider it Thursday to vote.
The Senate passed the new mask bill — negotiated by both chambers to address concerns about the elimination of a pandemic-era health exemption — by a vote of 28-0, with Senate Democrats absent in protest. But after a canceled committee and a lengthy private discussion among Republicans in the House of Representatives, the House did not immediately vote, holding up the bill’s passage to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper for at least a few more days.
Republican supporters say the legislation was prompted in part by the widespread use of masks by those protesting Israel’s war in Gaza on college campuses across the country — including at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Before the compromise, the bill eliminated a 2020 exemption for people wearing masks in public for health purposes, which outraged Democrats who said people with weakened immune systems could be unfairly targeted.
Under the new changes, the bill now allows anyone in public to “wear a medical or surgical grade mask for the purpose of preventing the spread of infectious diseases.” It also adds the ability for private property owners to ask someone to temporarily remove their mask to identify them.
Another addition to the bill gives some federal political committees more leeway in making donations to county and state parties in North Carolina. Senate Republicans said that language would allow groups like the Republican Governors Association and the Republican Lawyers General Association to donate money directly to the Republican Party of North Carolina to help with future elections.
Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger said the language will “level the playing field” after a 2020 State Board of Elections opinion in which he said the Democratic Governors Association and similar groups favored sending unlimited amounts of money directly to Democrats state party. He said Democrats didn’t vote on the bill because they had no way to defend the opinion.
But Senate Democrats said they withheld their votes because of the limited time they were given to review the proposed bill — particularly the campaign finance changes. At a later news conference focused solely on the campaign finance provisions, Sen. Michael Garrett of Guilford County likened them to “political money laundering” by helping wealthy donors secretly funnel money to the state GOP through Republican groups.
The new version of the bill also retains some original aspects of the legislation, such as increasing penalties for people who wear a mask while committing a crime or who deliberately block traffic during a demonstration.
The bill had moved quickly through the Senate until Rep. Erin Pare, Wake County’s only Republican General Assembly member, posted on X that she would not vote for the bill if the health exemption were removed. Her opposition prompted the House two weeks ago to put the brakes on passage of the bill, sending it to a negotiating team of lawmakers to reach a compromise.
Now Pare told The Associated Press she was happy with the health care system and said it was “the right thing to do.” The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has drafted that specific language, she said.
Addressing concerns about the new version of the bill, House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters that it would have to go through a vetting process before House members would approve the bill. The House will then vote on Tuesday.
“There’s no big rush,” Moore said. “Let’s just wait and deal with it next week.”
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Associated Press writer Gary Robertson in Raleigh contributed to this report.
