SENATE BILL: Mask Mandate Act (Passed)

[Former President tack50]

Basically, I am introducing this bill on behalf of president Pericles, to create a federal obligation for people to wear masks in certain situations, most notably in public transport and inside stores and other kinds of commerces.

Section 2 specifies the punishment for non-compliance (a 200$ fine, which is not so much that it would be too harsh, but is harsh enough that people will wear masks)

Section 3 gives exceptions for young children and for people with health issues

Section 4 creates an automatic sunset clause at the end of 2021, because this is Atlasia and we will 100% forget to repeal this 1 year from now

Section 5 was added on behalf of the president when discussing this bill before introducing it, and gives the NPC governors the ability to ask for exemptions to this mandate.

[Former President tack50]

Who is administering and policing the fines? and where does that money go?

Presumably it'd be the federal government? And the money would go to the federal government's bank account?

Tbh I suppose expecting the FBI to enforce this is unreasonable, I assume most policing in the US is done by local police? Is there some "standard national police force" in the US?

[Former President tack50]

A few things:

1) get rid of the car portion, it's dumb (or make it apply only to Uber or taxi drivers)
2) get rid of the fine
3) make it so the WHO has no responsibility over this and put it on the Atlasian government. The pandemic is probably gonna go on for a long time officially but it will definitely die down before that and masks won't be necessary anymore.

I can see the point of 1 and 3.

However what is the point of this if we don't enforce it through fines?

[Former President tack50]

Who is administering and policing the fines? and where does that money go?

Presumably it'd be the federal government? And the money would go to the federal government's bank account?

Tbh I suppose expecting the FBI to enforce this is unreasonable, I assume most policing in the US is done by local police? Is there some "standard national police force" in the US?

Standard national police force - that is the FBI.  The problem is the FBI usually only gets involved in select issues like say serial killers, terrorism etc, usually when there is a crime that crosses multiple states though that might not be as strict as it was in the past.

Having the FBI enforce a mandate like that would be a tremendous increase in responsibility and presence that they don't have the resources to handle, it would also be very bad long term.

Things of this nature are traditionally handled and enforced locally and that is the approach that is most inline with how the US is structured as well. The downside of that is you end up with a patchwork effort but on the other hand it is very complicated situation to have a Federal mandate enforced by local authorities. We have seen the situation with federal mandates on local enforcement going both ways in terms of constitutionality and cooperation.

Well, then I suppose we should ask local police departments to enforce this then, though as you say it is far from an ideal solution. We could also just introduce thsi bill x3 in the 3 regions though regional measures for Covid seem to me like the kind that will be forgotten about and in 2025 we will suddenly find that the South still is under a stay at home order or something lol.

I will say that here, any police force was (and is) authorized to fine you for breaking the mask wearing rules (or more importantly, the stay at home orders when those were a thing).

So regardless of whether you got caught by your local police, the national police or the gendarmerie; you got fined equally. Obviously since the last 2 don't exist in the US (and by extension Atlasia) outside the FBI (which would not really be in charge of enforcing stuff like this) that means that enforcement will have to fall primarily on local police departments.

If we need to give them some incentive, maybe they can be given a cut of the fines (or even all the fine money). Though that also creates perverse incentives but that happens with all kinds of fines. Or we can give it to municipalities and counties instead of to the police directly.

[Former President tack50]

Re: the comparison with immigration, I suppose you are referring here to stuff like "sanctuary cities" and what not?

I definitely trust all 3 regional governments to not  issue any executive orders that would make it so regional and state police can't enforce this mandate. If anything I'd expect the opposite (and we can always tell MB / R2D2 & n1240 / Truman to pass a executive order to enforce this mandate if needed)

I do worry about hypothetical NPCs rebelling against this mandate, but I hope they don't. But if they do I suppose there is there really nothing we can do about it?

[Former President tack50]

So I take it we need amendments here?

I can take a crack at it later tomorrow (Saturday depending on your timezone), but I would prefer to see if Tack has something in mind first in this regards.

I have no idea how to fix the jurisdiction and funding issue, so go ahead, no need to wait for me

[Former President tack50]

No objection to the amendment, though I am not sure it solves the jurisdiction issue? I am also assuming section 6 got cut off somewhere?

[Former President tack50]

Okay if that is the model we are thus proceeding with, then I need to know what federal funding to make it conditional on?

Do local police departments get funded by the federal government? (whether in part or in full). If so, then it's an easy choice, just withhold funds for police

[Former President tack50]

Friendly

[Former President tack50]

Aye

Re: Cars it also makes sense to me. The aim is to limit transmission between people and masks in cars are a good way.

In theory masks even at home would be even more effective but that is impossible to control or enforce obviously