Rethink mask law, LR asks legislators

Local governments should have option of face-covering rules, resolution says

Members of the Little Rock Board of Directors on Tuesday evening approved a resolution asking state lawmakers to reconsider a law passed earlier this year that bars local governments from enacting mask mandates during a surge in covid-19 cases and hospitalizations in Arkansas.

The symbolic measure was adopted as part of the consent agenda without discussion, though Vice Mayor Lance Hines said he would like the record to reflect he was a “nay” vote on the resolution.

The resolution was submitted by City Director Kathy Webb of Ward 3, Little Rock spokesman Spencer Watson told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Tuesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, Gov. Asa Hutchinson called a special session of the Legislature in part to create an exception to the law, Act 1002 of 2021, in order to allow school boards to mandate masks for students 11 and younger who are

ineligible for a vaccine.

The special session also will give lawmakers the ability to affirm a decision to end Arkansas’ participation in supplemental federal unemployment benefits, according to the governor.

The session is scheduled to begin this morning.

Act 1002, sponsored by Sen. Trent Garner, R-El Dorado, barred state government as well as local governments and school districts from requiring face coverings.

Certain exceptions were made for government-owned or controlled health care facilities and Department of Corrections facilities, and individual businesses can still require masks.

Hutchinson signed the legislation in late April, and it took effect last week.

The language of the Board of Directors resolution called attention to the high transmission of the delta variant of the coronavirus in Arkansas, calling it “rampant.”

The resolution said that “the elected governing bodies in a local area should have the discretion under the police power to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, as appropriate based upon identified risks such as the presence and high transmission rates the Delta variant currently imposes.”

The measure suggested local governments, including county governments, be allowed to place masking or face-covering requirements in public places when their jurisdiction includes an area of high transmission of disease as determined by the Arkansas Department of Health, alone or in conjunction with its federal partners.

A face-covering mandate in Little Rock for public settings preceded Hutchinson’s decision to issue a statewide mandate last year and outlasted the governor’s mandate when the statewide order ended this spring.

However, Mayor Frank Scott Jr. chose to end the city’s mask mandate in May, citing new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the use of face coverings by vaccinated individuals.