Lawmakers, not courts, should settle fight over mask rules, SC attorney general says

South Carolina lawmakers, not the court system, should be the body to settle the dispute over the legality of mandatory mask requirements, Attorney General Alan Wilson said Friday.

Wilson’s statement came a day after a University of South Carolina professor, who has an immunocompromised family member, sought legal clarification on a one-year state law that Wilson said prevents USC from requiring masks indoors on campus. State Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a Democrat whose district includes the college campus, is representing the professor after publicly criticizing Wilson’s involvement in the issue.

Harpootlian and Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, said this week the legislative intent of the one-year law, termed a proviso, was not meant to prevent mandatory mask mandates on campus. However, the law’s sponsor has said the intention of it was to prevent mask mandates, Wilson said earlier this week.

“We reiterate what we wrote to Sen. Harpootlian. If the legislature’s intent was what he says it was, he’ll have no trouble getting his fellow lawmakers to pass something clarifying that,” Wilson said Friday in a statement sent to media. “This is a political question for the state legislature to address, not the Supreme Court.”

Lawmakers will return to Columbia this fall to deal with how to spend money from the Savannah River Site settlement and federal COVID-19 relief. They’ll also tackle redistricting, the once-in-a-decade process when the Legislature redraws district lines.

It’s unclear whether lawmakers plan to tackle the mask mandate.

USC’s first day of classes is Aug. 19.

This story was originally published August 6, 2021 at 3:27 PM.