HELENA, Mont. (AP) – As US lawmakers meet this winter to address the crisis triggered by the pandemic, state houses themselves may turn out to be greenhouses for infection.
Many lawmakers will begin meeting remotely the year, but some Republican-controlled state houses, from Montana to Pennsylvania, plan to hold at least some of their sessions in person, with no masks required. Public health officials say relocation jeopardizes the safety of other lawmakers, staffers, lobbyists, the public and the journalists responsible for holding politicians to account.
The risk is more than mere speculation: A running count by The Associated Press shows that more than 250 state lawmakers across the country have contracted COVID-19 and at least seven have died.
The Montana legislature met on Monday without masking any rules. The Republican majority scrapped recent Democratic requests to keep the session at bay or delay until vaccines are more widely available. Failing that, Democrats demanded masks and virus testing demands, which were also rejected.
Democratic lawmakers wore masks when they were sworn in. Few Republicans did the same.
“If the session is held without public health precautions, it is very likely that the virus will spread in that environment, and it is very likely that we will see serious illness and, God forbid, death,” said Drenda Niemann, the health officer in Lewis and Clark County, which also includes the capital of the state of Helena.
Rather than addressing the COVID-19 guidelines prior to the session, Republicans decided to address them after lawmakers met by creating a panel that meets regularly to consider updating the policy. The Senate President’s pro tem, Republican Jason Ellsworth, said the panel “allows us to deal more flexibly with the situation” and “enables our personal freedoms and our responsibilities.”
The virus’s divergent approaches – with Republican lawmakers usually rejecting mask mandates and lockdown measures, and Democrats pushing for a more cautious approach – echoes that of Americans in general. That contrast was reflected during the holiday season, when millions of people took to the roads and airports despite requests from health officials to avoid travel and family gatherings to help control the virus, which has claimed more than 350,000 American lives.
Some lawmakers are trying to strike a balance between doing business personally and protecting against the disease.
The 400-member New Hampshire House plans to hold its first session day Wednesday with a drive-in event at the University of New Hampshire in what acting speaker Sherm Packard called the body’s “most risk-minimizing session” ever during the pandemic.
The clerk and speaker conduct business from a heated platform, and members can watch and listen on a screen or on their car radios. Microphones will be brought to their windows for questions and debate, and voting will be done via electronic devices.
New Hampshire House speaker Dick Hinch, a Republican, died of COVID-19 on Dec. 9, a week after being sworn in at an outdoor meeting at UNH. Democrats have pushed for remote rallies.
The legislatures in Alaska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Washington require masks, but the requirement is not enforced in Pennsylvania. Lack of enforcement is a concern for news outlets who need to balance their ability to cover events with the safety of their reporters.
“If we’re starting to get a high profile issue and there’s a scrum of reporters shouting questions at a legislator being exposed, it couldn’t be a worse situation,” said Paula Knudsen Burke of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Pennsylvania.
In Idaho, where lawmakers don’t have to wear masks, Idaho Public Television’s Melissa Davlin said media outlets are trying to keep reporters safe while ensuring adequate access to lawmakers, many of whom don’t follow the same public safety guidelines as newsrooms.
Informal conversations in the hallway “are so valuable for coverage and insight and even just background information,” Davlin said. “If we miss that, it’s a real loss to our ability to cover the session. But at the same time, we’re not going to do our viewers and readers any good when we get sick. “
Republicans in the Ohio House have blocked efforts to enforce a mask mandate, despite the fact that more than a dozen lawmakers there have tested positive for COVID-19.
Upcoming President of the Ohio Senate, Matt Huffman, was due to be sworn in from his home on Monday after testing positive for COVID-19. Huffman was experiencing mild symptoms and will return to the state house after a quarantine period, spokesman John Fortney said.
In conservative Wyoming, where Republican Governor Mark Gordon did not issue a mask mandate until early December, lawmakers plan to meet almost Jan. 12 to hear the state of the state from the governor. Legislative leaders will later decide whether to start a virtual session in February or have an in-person session starting in March, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported.
The Republican Rep. Roy Edwards in Wyoming died the day before Election Day of what his family later confirmed was COVID-19. Edwards spoke out against public health restrictions during his campaign to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
In Montana, all sessions and committee meetings will be available for viewing or hearing online, and lawmakers will be allowed to attend many hearings virtually, but voting on final bills by proxy is discouraged. Members of the public and lobbyists can testify about accounts via video conferencing, if they have access to the technology.
“I feel like that will preferentially censor the people who are either vulnerable or who really appreciate the advice of experts,” said M. Kumi Smith, assistant professor of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota.
Ellsworth, the leader of the Republican Senate, acknowledged that the COVID-19 panel of the legislature won’t fix everything.
“Ultimately, this is an animal that we have no control over,” he said of the pandemic at a hearing on the rules on December 16. “I imagine we have members who get sick. It’s possible we have members who die. But that possibility is there regardless, even if we’re here or not.”
___
The Associated Press writers, Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, and Farnoush Amiri in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.