The Alaska House went back to work on Monday after canceling floor sessions last week when several members refused to wear face masks amid an outbreak of COVID-19 among lawmakers and staff.
At its worst last week, almost 10% of the 60 legislators and more than 300 staffers in the Capitol had tested positive for the Coronavirus.
House Speaker Louise Stutes said she canceled floor sessions due to an unwillingness by several Republican lawmakers to comply with temporary masking rules she had imposed. The speaker announced March 28 that masks would be required in the House chambers until further notice, citing the surge in COVID cases.
“This is the policy, and if you think you’re going to come in here and totally ignore the policy, we simply aren’t going to have session,” she said.
Stutes, a Kodiak Republican, leads the House majority coalition comprised mostly of Democrats.
Aside from the dispute over whether all House members would wear a face mask during floor sessions to protect their colleagues, the slim to non-existent margin of control for the House majority coalition also was a factor last week.
The full House had been scheduled to start its debate and consider amendments to the state operating budget bill. The 21-member coalition cannot afford to lose a single member’s vote in the 40-member chamber, but at least two of the coalition’s members were out with COVID, leaving the coalition short of a winning majority on budget votes.
The House on Monday started its budget debate, which was expected to take most of this week. The Legislature faces a mid-May adjournment deadline.
Minority House Republicans have been critical of how the speaker handled the situation, saying in a statement March 29 that the “fact that some choose not to wear a mask is not a viable excuse to abruptly adjourn or cancel the floor session.”
Minority Leader Cathy Tilton, of Wasilla, said COVID is “something we’re going to have to live with.” She said masking should be a personal choice and noted that the Senate had been meeting.
Nikiski Republican Rep. Ben Carpenter, one of the biggest critics of Capitol mask requirements, told the Anchorage Daily News that the science behind asymptomatic transmission has been “debunked.”
“When I’m not coughing and sneezing, I don’t need someone to tell me, ‘You need to wear a mask because I’m scared that I might get sick,’” he said. “I can’t help you with your fear.”
Contrary to Carpenter’s assertion, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health care officials continue advising that people without symptoms can carry the virus and spread infections.
There are no universal masking rules in effect at the Capitol. But the presiding officers of the House and Senate have authority over their respective chambers and can impose masking requirements, the executive director of the Legislative Affairs Agency has said.
The Senate did not impose a masking rule amid the latest outbreak and held floor sessions last week, taking up several bills. Some senators wore masks; others did not.
Senate President Peter Micciche told the Anchorage Daily News that it doesn’t make sense to reimpose mandates at the Capitol because it’s unlikely those mandates will be followed elsewhere.
“There is zero confidence that if we were to reinstate rules in this building that people are going to behave similarly outside the building — which is why we should not reinstate rules within the building,” he said.
Reader Comments(0)