COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Many Republican lawmakers have criticized the governors’ emergency restrictions since the coronavirus outbreak began. Now that most legislatures are back in place, a new type of resistance is taking root: disinformation.
In their own comments or inviting skeptics to testify at legislative hearings, some state legislators from the Republican Party are using their platform to promote false information about the virus, the steps needed to limit its spread and the vaccines that will lift the country out of the pandemic.
In some cases, incorrect statements faced a rapid reaction, even being censored online. This raised difficult questions about how to aggressively combat the potentially dangerous misinformation of elected officials or during legislative hearings, protecting freedom of expression and people’s access to government.
Last week, YouTube withdrew a video of the committee’s testimony in the Ohio House after a witness incorrectly claimed that COVID-19 was not killing children. The platform said the video violated community standards against spreading incorrect information.
Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology project, said YouTube has gone too far.
“When we are talking about the testimony that took place at a public hearing, the very best answer would be counter-speech, perhaps in the form of fact checking or labeling, rather than this attempt to empty it through the memory hole,” said Wizner .
But opposing voices are not always allowed at committee hearings.
In Michigan, for example, the House Oversight Committee did not include state health officials or other virus experts in a discussion of a prolonged break in youth contact sports ordered by Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer.
He introduced Jayme McElvany, a virus skeptic who also posted about the QAnon conspiracy and the unfounded allegations of electoral fraud by former President Donald Trump. Founder of a group called Let Them Play, McElvany questioned the masks’ mandates and the science behind the COVID-19 data during a legislative hearing that did not have any witnesses on the other side.
Wizner said that such imbalances need to be highlighted, not suppressed.
“People need to know that this is what is going on for local government,” he said. When hearings are posted online, YouTube’s owner, Google, has many tools to flag questionable information and direct people to the facts, said Wizner.
In Tennessee, a Republican lawmaker is promoting legislation that would prohibit most government agencies from requiring anyone to receive COVID-19 vaccines, which is not mandatory anywhere. Congressman Bud Hulsey tried to garner support to minimize the severity of the disease.
When testifying, he pointed out selective statistics that COVID-19 has a lower mortality rate among children and falsely claimed that vaccines could cause genetic modifications.
Hulsey faced resistance from a Republican colleague, Deputy Sabi Kumar, a surgeon who has been a rare supporter of the Republican for the proper use of masks while lawmakers gather at the Tennessee Capitol.
“My concern is that (the bill) creates an anti-vaccine attitude,” said Kumar.
Kumar pointed out that vaccines have saved countless lives over the centuries and has repeatedly verified Hulsey’s facts, emphasizing that vaccines do not change a person’s DNA.
Hulsey was not convinced.
“People have seen governments across the country do things that have never happened in the history of the United States and that scares them,” he said. “They have every right to be afraid.”
His project was approved by a House subcommittee.
In Alaska, Governor Mike Dunleavy is fighting what he called a pattern of misrepresentations by state senator Lora Reinbold, a Republican colleague, saying that she would no longer send members of her administration to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a scathing February 18 letter referring to his Facebook posts, Dunleavy accused Reinbold of misrepresenting the state’s COVID-19 response and deceiving the public.
“Disinformation must end,” wrote the governor.
Reinbold was a vocal critic of Dunleavy issuing statements of disaster while the Legislature was not in session. She used her committee to amplify the voices of those who question the effectiveness of the masks and the effects of the government’s emergency response.
On social media, she characterized the Dunleavy administration as being “wild” compared to “these experimental vaccines”. At a hearing in early February, Reinbold questioned the extent to which the government had suspended regulations during the pandemic.
“It’s almost like martial law,” she said.
The governor said that while he tried to soften business rules, such as the suspension of fees, he never imposed martial law or forced Alaskans to get vaccines. Reinbold called the governor’s criticism of it unfounded.
“Some call information ‘disinformation’ that they don’t agree with or want to hear,” Reinbold said in an email.
The dispute prompted the intervention of the Senate president, who said he hoped his committees would provide a “balanced approach”.
In Idaho, Congresswoman Heather Scott opened the legislative session in January declaring, “The pandemic is over.” She said that more than 1,600 COVID-19 deaths in Idaho at that time were not “even close to a pandemic.”
The average number of daily COVID-19 cases is falling in Idaho, but the death toll has increased.
During a live Zoom forum with constituents in mid-February, Scott criticized the National Governors Association, which issued a statement last year with tips to combat misinformation about the virus. She claimed that the group is run by “globalists” from the World Economic Forum and that “they are the ones who left with COVID”. The term “globalists” is widely considered an anti-Semitic slander.
Scott did not immediately respond to a message asking for clarification as to what she meant.
Several of those who are spreading false virus information in legislatures have also supported Trump’s false claims that the 2020 elections were stolen.
In Virginia, Republican Del. Dave LaRock, who attended the Trump rally in Washington, DC, which preceded the attack on the United States Capitol, alerted a state board health committee in late January that the COVID-19 vaccines were unreliable. He said they were especially risky for several communities, including the elderly and people of color.
Democrat Del. Cia Price, who is black, called LaRock’s false claims “simply dangerous.”
“There is a legitimate hesitation in vaccination in the communities that the gentleman has listed, but real and factual information is the key, not fanning the flames that are based on historical events,” she said.
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Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska. Associated Press writers David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan; Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville, Tennessee; Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia; and Keith Ridler in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.