Bipartisan SC lawmakers want K-12 mask rule repealed to slow COVID. Why that’s unlikely
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COVID-19 mask news in Midlands schools
Curious to learn what local schools are doing about face masks as COVID-19 rises in South Carolina? Here’s a roundup of the latest updates from elementary schools to universities around the state.
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Two more South Carolina lawmakers — one Democrat and one Republican — have joined calls asking the Legislature quickly return to Columbia to repeal a portion of the state budget aimed at banning mask mandates in schools.
On Tuesday, state Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, and Rep. Jermaine Johnson, D-Richland, requested an emergency legislative session to do away with the controversial rule, known as a proviso.
“When the House and Senate passed Proviso 1.108 earlier this year, it looked like the pandemic was winding down and would soon be in the rear-view mirror. The situation has changed,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement, arguing local government leaders, not the General Assembly, should be charged with making mask decisions.
But a special session to repeal the measure — or even a vote to modify it at best — would be an uphill battle.
For starters, to call a special session and get lawmakers back to Columbia would require action from Republicans Senate President Harvey Peeler, of Cherokee County, and House Speaker Jay Lucas, of Darlington County.
Then, lawmakers would need a two-thirds vote in each chamber to amend what’s called a sine die agreement — a measure that sets what lawmakers can discuss after session ends in May. That alone would be difficult to obtain, lawmakers say.
If lawmakers were able to clear both hurdles, it’s unclear whether Gov. Henry McMaster would veto that legislation, though he’s said repeatedly that any requirement for children to wear masks over their parents’ objections would be wrong.
“As long as I am your governor, there will be no government telling your child they have to wear a mask in school if you don’t want them too,” McMaster told a group of Lexington County Republicans Monday night.
Then comes the politics.
Republican McMaster is against the requirement, and Republican State House leaders have said the same. And, in 2022, all 124 House members will be up for reelection— 81 of whom are Republicans who are unlikely to want to create controversy right before a primary.
But lawmakers are already planning to come back to Columbia this year to take up at least one other issue: redistricting.
Though lawmakers aren’t expected to return until late in the year, Shealy told The State they should use that opportunity to take up the proviso while her and her colleagues are already at the State House.
“We’re going to have to come back, and I think we should come back sooner rather than later,” Shealy said.
Republican Senate and House leaders could not be reached for comment by deadline. The House Speaker’s office declined to comment.
Schools rack up COVID cases
The bipartisan calls to return come as schools struggle to slow the spread of COVID-19 within their own walls.
This semester, schools have already reported nearly 7,500 cases among students and staff, according to data from the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.
But that figure only paints a partial figure of the woes faced by schools as the pandemic rages on.
Thousands of students across the state have been exposed to COVID-19, pushing entire classes and schools into quarantine. As a result, districts across the state have transitioned to periods of virtual learning. And schools across the state also have reported deaths among teachers due to COVID-19 complications, including four in Dorchester District 2 and one in Lancaster.
The call from Johnson and Shealy to repeal the budget provision prohibiting schools from using state dollars to enforce a mask mandate is hardly the first.
In mid-August, the Legislative Black Caucus, along with other Democratic House members, called for the proviso’s repeal. They were followed by a bipartisan group of senators that included the Republican chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate minority leader.
Shealy, who’s mulling a June primary challenge against McMaster for governor, said she believes more of her colleagues support repealing the proviso than those who have spoken up.
“I think about a lot of things,” Shealy, who has served in the Senate since 2013, told The State. “I wish that our governor would be a little more outspoken on a couple things, like this issue.”
Running for governor, she said, “has crossed my mind.”
On top of the political issues surrounding the proviso, the effort also has drawn a fair amount of legal review.
In late August, the U.S. Department of Education launched a civil rights investigation into the rule, which explores whether the budget measure discriminates against students with disabilities that make them prone to severe illness from COVID-19. The state also faces a civil lawsuit from parents and disability advocates that claim parents are being forced to chose between their student’s health and public education.
And the S.C. Supreme Court struck down the city of Columbia’s school mask requirement because of its enforcement mechanism, saying it was in clear conflict with the state law.
The court has yet to rule, however, on a move from Richland 2 school district to block the enforcement of the measure.
Reporter Joseph Bustos contributed to article.
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 2:32 PM.
