By Martin Hawver
This will be the week we get a good handle on just how counties are going to react to Gov. Laura Kelly’s “mask order” which requires Kansans, and visitors here, to wear facemasks when in public spaces where they are likely to be less than six feet apart.
County commissions will get the chance this week – and some already have – to pare down that ruling about masks in public spaces for whatever county reason there is. It just takes a public vote at a county commission meeting to say, “never mind in this county.” Nobody’s sure whether it could be stretched to say…unless your car tag is from a different county where there are more COVID-19 cases than we are comfortable with.
For us Statehouse habitués, the argument over the masks and who can tell whom to wear them and when and where is entertaining because if lobbyists used the same sort of arguments, well…they wouldn’t have much success for their clients.
There’s that initial argument by anti-maskers that “this is another state mandate on our lives.” That’s interesting, partly because the concept behind the mask rule is to save lives or at least reduce the inconvenience of catching or possibly dying of COVID-19.
And some of us under the Dome are wondering whether this whole mask issue was portrayed convincingly right from the beginning. There’s a little talk that if the masks had initially been described as a way to reduce catching the disease rather than spreading the disease, there might be fewer opponents to the issue.
Gotta wonder also whether the Kelly mask order, which has been described by Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, as an “iron-fisted state order,” is just that iron-fisted if counties can opt out of it. Nobody can remember whether the “iron -fisted order” argument was used to rally public protest against, say, those sneeze guards at the salad bar? …or to arbitrarily set .8 percent as the bright red line on driving while intoxicated?
And nobody’s talking out loud about it, but there is also that underlying benefit for businesses and stores and bars and such by having in place a statewide order. That way business owners and their masked employees can point toward Topeka and say, “we’re not keeping you from shopping here, it’s the governor.”
Nothing much better than finding someone else to blame for angering some customers, is there? That makes it simple, and probably means that store owners aren’t going to have to explain, probably unsuccessfully, why they won’t let anti-maskers into the store.
There’s also the issue of those $2,500 fines for violating the mask order. Yes, while the order leaves enforcement of the order up to the counties, and their sheriff’s officers, and county attorneys, nobody’s seen a fine issued yet.
Not wearing a mask in a county that hasn’t exempted itself from the order carries a civil fine of up to $2,500. It’s civil, so it won’t show up as a criminal act that will damage your chances for landing a job, or test-driving a car, but it’s still up to $2,500, though local officials could say, “we’ll call it good with just a warning, or maybe a $10 fine to cover the cost of copying the paperwork.”
Chances are good that the full fine wouldn’t be levied by your local district attorney unless you weren’t wearing a mask while robbing a liquor store…
So, yes, Statehouse regulars are wondering where this mask rule goes next session, when there are going to be brand-new legislators in the hallways…and when the real campaigning for the governor’s office starts again.
Although, the six-foot distance rule probably sounds good to some fathers of dating-age daughters…
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