HELENA, Mont. (AP) – While US lawmakers are meeting this winter to deal with the crisis created by the pandemic, parliaments themselves can be greenhouses for infections.
Many legislatures will start the year by meeting remotely, but some Republican-controlled state chambers, from Montana to Pennsylvania, plan to hold at least part of their sessions in person, without requiring masks. Public health officials say the action jeopardizes the safety of other lawmakers, officials, lobbyists, the public and journalists responsible for holding politicians accountable.
The risk is more than speculation: an ongoing count from The Associated Press reveals that more than 250 state legislators across the country have hired COVID-19, and at least seven have died.
The Montana legislature met on Monday without masking rules. The Republican majority rejected recent Democratic requests to hold the session remotely or delay it until vaccines are more widely available. Without it, Democrats have called for requirements for masks and virus testing, which have also been rejected.
Democratic lawmakers wore masks when they took office. Few Republicans did the same.
“If the session is conducted without public health precautions, it is highly likely that the virus will spread in that environment, and it is highly likely that we will see serious illnesses and, God forbid, death,” said Drenda Niemann, the health officer Lewis and Clark County, which includes the state capital, Helena.
Rather than addressing COVID-19 guidelines before the session, Republicans decided to address them after legislators met, creating a panel that will meet regularly to consider updating policies. The provisional president of the Senate, Republican Jason Ellsworth, said that the panel “allows us to be more fluid with the situation” and “allows for our personal freedoms and our responsibilities”.
Divergent approaches to the virus – with Republican lawmakers mostly rejecting mask mandates and blocking measures, and Democrats calling for a more cautious approach – reflect that of Americans in general. This contrast was reflected during the holiday, when millions of people took to the roads and airports despite calls from health officials to avoid travel and family reunions to help contain the virus, which claimed more than 350,000 American lives.
Some legislatures are trying to strike a balance between conducting business personally and protecting themselves against the disease.
The 400-member New Hampshire House plans to hold its first session on Wednesday with a drive-in event at the University of New Hampshire in what interim President Sherm Packard called the “lowest risk session” during the pandemic.
The Chamber’s secretary and speaker will conduct business on a heated platform, and members can watch and listen through a screen or their car radio. The microphones will be brought to your windows for questions and debates, and voting will be carried out using electronic devices.
New Hampshire Mayor Dick Hinch, a Republican, died of COVID-19 on December 9, a week after being sworn in during an open-air meeting at UNH. Democrats are pushing for remote meetings.
Legislatures in Alaska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Washington are requiring masks, but the requirement is not being applied in Pennsylvania. Lack of enforcement is a concern for media outlets that need to balance their ability to cover events with the safety of their reporters.
“If we start to get into a high-profile issue and there is confusion of reporters shouting questions at a lawmaker who has been unmasked, it couldn’t be any worse,” said Paula Knudsen Burke of the Press Freedom Reporters Committee in Pennsylvania.
In Idaho, where lawmakers are not required to wear masks, Melissa Davlin of Idaho Public Television said that the media are trying to keep reporters safe and at the same time ensuring adequate access for lawmakers, many of whom do not adhere to the same public safety guidelines as newsrooms.
Casual conversations in the hall “are very valuable for coverage and perception and even just the background,” said Davlin. “Losing that is a real loss to our ability to cover the session. But, at the same time, we will not do any good to our viewers and readers if we get sick ”.
Republicans in the Ohio House blocked efforts to impose a mask mandate, despite the fact that more than a dozen lawmakers there tested positive for COVID-19.
New Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman was due to take over at his home on Monday after a positive test for COVID-19. Huffman has had mild symptoms and will return to the state after a quarantine period, said spokesman John Fortney.
In conservative Wyoming, where Republican Governor Mark Gordon did not issue a mask mandate until early December, lawmakers plan to meet virtually on January 12 to hear the governor’s speech on the state of the state. Legislative leaders will later decide whether to start a virtual session in February or to hold a face-to-face session starting in March, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported.
Wyoming Republican MP Roy Edwards died the day before election day of what his family later confirmed to be COVID-19. Edwards spoke out in opposition to public health restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus during his campaign.
In Montana, all plenary sessions and committee meetings will be available for viewing or hearing online, and lawmakers will be allowed to attend many audiences virtually, but voting on final bills by proxy is discouraged. Members of the public and lobbyists will be able to testify on bills using videoconferencing, if they have access to the technology.
“I feel that this will preferentially censor people who are vulnerable or who really value the advice that experts are giving,” said M. Kumi Smith, assistant professor of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota.
Ellsworth, the Senate Republican leader, acknowledged that the Legislative’s COVID-19 panel will not solve everything.
“At the end of the day, this is an animal that we cannot control,” he said of the pandemic during a December 16 rules hearing. “I imagine that we will have members who will be sick. It is possible that we have members who have died. But that possibility exists independently, whether we are here or not. “
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Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire and Farnoush Amiri in Columbus, Ohio contributed to this report.