State Sen. Lora Reinbold, who has objected all year to the Legislature's policy requiring face masks in the Capitol and to the governor's response to the pandemic, held a news conference outside the Senate chambers in Juneau on March 4. Reinbold said she wants an apology from Gov. Mike Dunleavy after he sent her a letter last month accusing her of misrepresenting the state's COVID-19 response.
Though Eagle River Republican Sen. Lora Reinbold made peace with legislative leadership and wore a face mask for the Senate floor session on Monday, Wasilla Republican Rep. Christopher Kurka removed his mask during the House floor session and was asked to leave the room.
"Let's end this charade," Kurka said. "COVID-19 is here to stay. No measures we take are going to stop it, no matter how repressive a course, or unconstitutional."
The freshman legislator expressed doubt that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's support for wearing masks is based on science.
"What are we doing to ourselves?" he said Monday, adding the comment "my body, my choice" as he spoke against the Legislature's face-mask rule. He called the requirement a "coercion of evil."
Kurka won election with almost 74% of the vote in the heavily Republican district in November.
He took off his face mask after finishing his remarks. House Speaker Louise Stutes, of Kodiak, asked Kurka to put his mask back on.
"Would you prefer I leave?" he asked.
"If you don't want to put your mask on, then yes, I would prefer that you leave," Stutes said.
Kurka left the House chamber, then wore a mask in committee and subcommittee meetings later in the day.
Legislative rules during the COVID-19 pandemic require everyone in the Capitol to wear a face mask while in meeting rooms and the hallways. Lawmakers and staff may remove their masks while in their private offices.
Kurka's speech and demonstration against the mask rule came less than 30 minutes before Reinbold entered the Senate floor session wearing a face covering that fulfilled the rules after fighting the requirement all session.
Her Senate colleagues voted 18-1 on March 10 for leadership to enforce COVID-19 safety policies on members "until they are fully compliant." The action came 51 days into the legislative session, throughout which Reinbold had worn a partial, clear plastic face shield that legislative leaders said ran afoul of masking rules.
Senate Rules Chair Gary Stevens, a Kodiak Republican, said Reinbold also was not following testing protocols or submitting to temperature checks and questions that are standard for admittance to the building. "Inordinate" amounts of time have been spent "trying to reason" with her, he said.
In addition to face masks, legislators and staff are required to take a COVID-19 test about twice a week to gain access to the building. Reinbold has declined to take the tests.
She said on social media that her actions "are to protect my constitutional rights, including civil liberties and those who I represent, even under immense pressure and public scrutiny."
Senate President Peter Micciche told reporters after the Senate vote on March 10 that the issue gained importance and urgency following COVID-19 cases in the Capitol. One of his staffers was hospitalized last week with the illness.
Micciche said the Legislature needs to ensure it can get its work done, and staff had raised safety concerns.
"We have a zero tolerance at this point for anyone unwilling to observe those rules," the Soldotna Republican said.
Reinbold on social media called the rules "controversial and arbitrarily applied."
On Monday, however, she abandoned her partial face shield that did not meet legislative rules and instead wore a full plastic shield that covered her nose and down to the bottom of her face. Leadership determined the new covering complied with the rules.
She was allowed to sit at her desk on the Senate floor during the session for the first time since last week when she was banned from the floor and committee meetings.
Reinbold, who has criticized the state's pandemic response as excessive, also has been at odds with Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has accused her of misrepresenting the state's COVID-19 response and has refused to send members of his administration to testify before her committee. The senator has called his accusations baseless and has continued to criticize government responses to the pandemic.
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