Simone Hetherington, a speaker during public comment, urges lawmakers not to pass the masking bill during the state Senate Rules Committee in the Legislative Building in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Hetherington told lawmakers she is immunocompromised and is concerned how the bill would impact her ability to wear a mask in public.
“It's about time that the craziness is put, at least slowed down, if not put to a stop,” Wilson County Republican Sen. Buck Newton, who presented the bill, said on the Senate floor Wednesday. Since the pandemic, masks have become a partisan flashpoint — and Senate debate on if the law would make it illegal to mask for health purposes was no different.
Simone Hetherington, an immunocompromised person who spoke during Wednesday's Senate Rules Committee, said masking is one of the only ways she can protect herself from illnesses and fears the law would prevent that practice. “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 so they can do something wrong,” Newton said.
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