Governor Uses Nuclear Option to Preserve His School Mask Mandate, Lawmakers Instantly Rise Up Against Him
The GOP-controlled Kentucky state Senate and House of Representatives worked together to override Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s coronavirus mask mandate in public schools.
Republican state Sen. Max Wise, who sponsored Senate Bill 1, said Friday that the move was an attempt to curb government overreach on the part of state bureaucrats who want to impose one-size-fits-all mask mandates on schoolchildren.
The KY legislature, many of whom were Democrats & Republicans, voted on SB1 to give the decision to create COVID-19 mask & quarantine protocols back to local school board decision making and out of the hands of a one size fits all mandate from the KY Board of Education. https://t.co/iJTaXkx6Vm
— Max Wise (@maxwellwise) September 10, 2021
The Kentucky Senate passed SB 1 — which eliminated Beshear’s school mask mandate — Thursday on a vote of 28-8.
The Senate has passed Senate Bill 1, sponsored by @maxwellwise, 28-8. Information on SB 1 can be found here: https://t.co/ioDFKw7YTi #kyga21 pic.twitter.com/J2PL18JMBQ
— KY Senate Majority (@KYSenateGOP) September 9, 2021
Hours later, Beshear vetoed the part of the bill that scrapped his mask mandate shortly before 11 p.m. local time, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported Thursday.
Almost immediately, the GOP-controlled General Assembly jumped into action to override the Democrat’s veto in the Senate on a 22-6 vote and in the House on a 69-24 vote.
School districts now have five business days to determine their respective mask policies before the governor’s statewide mandate officially ends.
The Kentucky Republicans deftly worked together to defeat Beshear’s attempt to force children to wear masks all day at school, in contravention of studies suggesting that cloth masks are not 100 percent effective at curbing viral spread.
There is also ample scientific research indicating that children are at minimal risk of contracting or spreading the coronavirus.
Sadly, there have been reports of heavy-handed enforcement of school mask mandates that some critics say borders on child abuse.
Last week, a Las Vegas mom said a substitute teacher had punitively taped a mask to her 9-year-old son’s face in front of his classroom as other students laughed.
“I was furious, furious,” she told KVVU-TV. “I was scared for my son on what kind of long-term effect it is going to have on him socially, the fact that the entire class was laughing. … He was crying, he was humiliated.”
The mother said the teacher had added a second layer of tape from her son’s nose to his forehead.
When her son recounted the incident to her, the mom was stunned to learn that taping masks to children’s faces had been a regular occurrence in his classroom since the beginning of the school year.
Critics say it is unsanitary and unhealthy for children to wear masks for seven to eight hours a day.
Dr. Nicole Saphier, a physician and mother of three, said imposing draconian coronavirus restrictions on kids is anti-scientific.
“The CDC continues to miss the mark in helping Americans understand the risk of severe outcomes of COVID-19 in children,” Saphier wrote in a July 28 Fox News Op-Ed.
“Since the mantra during the pandemic has always been to ‘follow the science,'” she wrote, “unless there is overwhelming new evidence showing children wearing facemasks in a school setting where the adults are vaccinated significantly lessens viral transmission and saves lives, mask policies should be reserved for high-risk scenarios based on local infection rates with clear metrics of when they should be instituted and removed.”
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