'Nobody vacations in New Jersey': NC lawmaker dismisses critics in mask fight
After North Carolina senators voted to repeal a law allowing people to wear face masks in public for health reasons, a New Jersey woman was one of hundreds who wrote with some concerns.
She sent an email to every member of the State Senate saying she would tell all of her friends and family to stay away from North Carolina if the anti-mask proposal becomes law, given that people in the restaurant and hospitality industries would be likely to be exposed.
Sen. Warren Daniel, R-Burke, wrote back to suggest her opinions on tourism mattered little: “Nobody vacations in New Jersey,” he said in his response to her, which he also sent to other lawmakers.
The exchanges between Daniel, the New Jersey woman and at least two other concerned citizens illustrate how some lawmakers have dismissed criticism of the proposal from disability rights groups, free speech advocates, public health officials and others. The email exchanges, obtained by WRAL News, could point to a broader political miscalculation in an election year when Republicans are trying to woo moderate voters in an attempt to maintain veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers.
Daniel isn’t a top member of GOP leadership but does chair the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is in charge of vetting many proposed bills — including the mask ban proposal, which his committee approved earlier this month.
The bill passed along party lines in the state Senate. But it was rejected Wednesday by the Republican-led state House of Representatives, illustrating wide GOP disagreement over the issue. The proposal now is in limbo; a small group of Republican lawmakers from each chamber is expected to meet soon to see if they can find a solution that both the House and Senate can agree on. The mask ban language was included as part of a broader bill aimed at creating harsher penalties against protesters, as well as criminals who wear masks while breaking the law.
House Republicans — and the woman from New Jersey — weren’t the only ones to signal their uneasiness with the bill ahead of the vote Wednesday.
After a self-identified disabled woman sent an email detailing her numerous concerns should the mask ban pass, ending with a plea to lawmakers to “please be logical about this and think about people’s lives if you are truly pro-life in any capacity,” Daniel replied that she was engaging in “hysteria.”
Nobody was arrested for wearing a mask for health reasons even before the state formally legalized it in 2020, Daniel wrote back to her, saying he doesn’t think people should be worried about getting rid of that rule now.
“If you have been led to believe that by Democrats so that they can score political points, then that is unfortunate,” he said.
But it’s not just Democrats who are raising concerns.
Growing GOP divisions
The pushback from Republican leaders in the state House comes as some conservatives in that chamber echoed the same concerns about the bill that have been raised by public health advocates and Democratic lawmakers.
“If I have a cancer patient who wants to go to the drugstore, and is concerned about picking something up, they have every right in the world to put a mask on," Rep. Erin Pare, R-Wake, said in an interview Monday as GOP pushback to the proposal was growing. "No one should even question that."
This isn’t the legislature’s first foray into a high-profile culture war issue in a year when voters are poised to elect a governor, president and members of the state legislature. In 2016 Republican lawmakers passed House Bill 2, a law banning transgender people from using bathrooms that corresponded with their gender identity, as well as banning local city or county governments from passing anti-discrimination rules protecting LGBTQ people.
That ended in boycotts of North Carolina from the business, sports and music industries — as well as individuals’ own travel boycotts, like some people are threatening again now over the mask proposal. The resulting political and economic damage from HB2 led to incumbent Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, losing to Democratic challenger Roy Cooper, who has been governor ever since.
Cooper can’t run for a third straight term so this year the race for governor pits Democratic nominee Josh Stein against Republican nominee Mark Robinson. Every seat in the state legislature is also up for election. Republicans currently hold veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers by only a single seat, so if Democrats can flip just one seat in either chamber and also elect Stein as governor, they’ll be able to slow down the Republican Party’s agenda in the legislature.
And the potential mask ban isn’t the only thing leading to concerns of a new round of boycotts. The state’s public university system is set to repeal its diversity, equity and inclusion policies on Thursday. On Wednesday at the state legislature some Democratic lawmakers said such a move will discourage businesses from wanting to expand here — and Deanna Jones, a transgender woman who serves as vice president of Harmony NC, a pro-LGBTQ business group, questioned whether GOP leaders learned any lessons from the HB2 aftermath.
“We can’t risk losing this momentum because we’re fighting a cancel-culture war,” she said. “We did that in 2016, and it hurt us.”
Daniel stood by his responses to out-of-state critics — who also included a concerned medical professional from Chicago, who said she’d be afraid to visit her family in North Carolina. “I don’t visit Illinois because of their overly restrictive gun laws that make it impossible for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves in crime-ridden murder zones like Chicago,” Daniel wrote to her.
When asked about the emails by WRAL, Daniel said he was more conciliatory to actual constituents of his district who have raised concerns, even if he dismisses critics from places like New Jersey and Illinois.
“Our office has been getting a lot of emails from out-of-state people, from high-crime, high-tax, poorly run blue states,” Daniel said.
He noted another email he said he sent to a constituent, which went into more detail about the changes and why he didn’t think they should concern voters. That email included analysis of the bill from the state health department, a part of Cooper’s administration that said people would likely still be able to wear masks without being convicted of a crime. But he also acknowledged that the Senate’s version of the bill was likely to change, if for nothing else than to stop giving political ammunition to the other side, he said.
“I do believe that before its final passage, HB 237 will most likely be clarified so that political groups can't misconstrue the bill and scare our citizens for fundraising purposes and political gain,” he wrote.
Backlash to the bill among moderate Republicans or unaffiliated voters could pose a reelection threat to GOP candidates representing swing districts — which in turn could jeopardize Republicans’ narrow supermajority in the House, according to Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College.
“It could add antagonism to an election that they really don't want any heightened levels of antagonism towards,” Bitzer told WRAL News this week. “If the small sliver of the moderate middle finds that maybe this is pushing the envelope a little too far, this could have the blowback against Republicans in some competitive areas.”
Take Pare’s district in southwestern Wake County as an example. In 2020, the district voted for Republican President Donald Trump with 52% of the vote — better than Trump's overall performance statewide, but not necessarily a safe seat this year. As Wake County's population has boomed it has been shifting to the left. Voters in the state's largest county have now elected Democrats to 18 of its 19 seats in the state legislature, with Pare the only GOP representative.
NC laws on masks
North Carolina outlawed wearing masks in public in the 1950s, in an effort to crack down on the KKK. Various exceptions have been written into law over the years, including protections for people who need to wear masks for work and, in 2020, a broad protection for people who wear masks to protect their health.
And while medical professionals broadly credit mask-wearing with helping slow the spread of airborne diseases — including Covid-19, the flu and the common cold — some North Carolina Republican lawmakers now want to undo that exception in state law.
The lead sponsor of the proposal, Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson, said last week that the state should never have allowed the public health exception in the first place. He and other GOP supporters say repealing it will help law enforcement more easily detain or arrest protesters who wear masks to hide their identities. It comes as pro-Palestinian protests have ramped up on college campuses, at which many demonstrators have worn masks.
When Democrats asked why the law couldn’t be amended to crack down on people who commit crimes while wearing a mask, but at least leave in the public health provision, Newton said removing the public health exception will make it easier on law enforcement to crack down on protesters who wear masks.
“It's about time that the craziness is at least slowed down, if not literally stopped," he said.
