SC Gov. McMaster thinks Columbia mask rule is unlawful
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster said Monday that state law is “crystal clear” in prohibiting mask mandates in schools for the coming year, and said he doesn’t think a recently passed City of Columbia ordinance requiring masks in some schools would hold up in court.
Columbia City Council recently passed a measure that requires students and faculty at 43 elementary and middle schools and day cares in the city to wear masks. That came despite a one-year law written into the state budget by legislators that prevents schools from spending state funds on mask mandates.
At a Monday news conference, McMaster was asked about the Columbia rule.
“That (Columbia) mandate is, I believe, contrary to state law,” said McMaster, a former U.S. attorney and the state’s former attorney general. “The state law is crystal clear that state funds are not to be used to enforce a mask mandate. The very people who were listed (in the city’s ordinance) as those responsible to enforce the mandate are, of course, paid in whole or in part with state funds.”
The governor said state funds are intrinsic to public schools in South Carolina.
“State funds infuse everything that happens in our public school system,” he said. “If the enforcement mechanism is present in the school, then that is using state funds to enforce it. That’s my view, I think that’s the view of the General Assembly, and I would think that would be the view of a court if it was presented to a court.”
Throughout Monday’s press conference, McMaster hammered a message that whether students wear masks in schools should be personal choices made by parents, and that he wouldn’t be mandating them in schools any time soon.
“Mandating masks is not the answer,” McMaster said Monday. “Personal responsibility is the answer. Common sense is the answer.”
On Aug. 5 the Columbia City Council voted 5-1 in a special session to approve Mayor Steve Benjamin’s emergency declaration requring masks in some schools. Violators face a potential $100 city fine.
Councilman Daniel Rickenmann, a candidate to succeed Benjamin in November’s election, was the lone vote against the measure. He said the city should do everything it can to encourage people to wear masks, get vaccinated and take other precautions against the spread of COVID-19, but he believes a mandate will violate state law.
Benjamin pushed back against that assertion, noting the law doesn’t limit the city’s actions, and argued the state constitution empowers cities to take emergency measures such as the mask ordinance.
The Columbia school mask ordinance was almost immediately questioned by Republican state leaders. On Aug. 6, Senate President Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, and House Speaker Jay Lucas issued a joint letter decrying the capital city’s measure.
The legislative leaders said they think the one-year mask law in the state budget is “clear and unambiguous” and that it prohibits masks in schools in South Carolina no matter where they may be located.
“The actions taken by Columbia City Council at the request and direction of Mayor Benjamin are in clear and deliberate violation of the plain meaning of the proviso,” Peeler and Lucas wrote.
This isn’t the first time a city ordinance from Benjamin and the city council has drawn the ire of state-level officials.
State Attorney General Alan Wilson sued Columbia over three gun ordinances adopted by the city in 2019. One of the laws added homemade “ghost guns” to the city’s nuisance ordinance. Another allowed for the seizure of guns from people under an extreme risk protection order. And the third prohibits the possession of guns within 1,000 feet of a school.
Wilson argued that the legislation of gun matters in the state belongs with General Assembly, and Judge Jocelyn Newman sided with him in May. The city vowed to appeal the case.
This story was originally published August 9, 2021 at 10:31 AM.
