SENATE BILL: Mask Mandate Act (Passed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Mask Mandate Act

To mandate the usage of masks nationwide in response to the COVID 19 pandemic

1. Starting 3 days after the passage of this bill, Atlasian citizens shall wear masks on the following situations:
   a. In any means of public transport
   b. In any shops, commerces or other public enclosed spaces; except those dedicated to the consumption of food and drinks
   c. Inside cars, if the people in the car do not live in the same household
2. People who do not follow this rule shall be fined $200
3. This bill shall not apply to people under the age of 6, nor to anyone with health issues where a doctor has prescribed that the usage of a mask would be negative for the patient's health
4. This bill shall automatically sunset on December 31st, 2021; or when the WHO declares the COVID-19 pandemic officially over
5. States may be exempted from having the mask mandate apply within them if they provide a formal request for an exemption to the President and the President accepts this request within 7 days.

Sponsor: Tack50
Senate Designation: SB25:11

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Initial Debate Period - Sponsor Advocacy

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

Local authorities are bound to uphold the laws and constitution in the US. That includes Federal laws, so at least they cannot outright break them. A lot of things that are crimes in the US are crimes at the state level including most crimes of violence for instance. Therefore, assuming the are of concern is an area with recognized Federal power and one could make a case based on interstate commerce concerning the transmission of the virus, though I am not in a position to parce those legalities at this moment, that the Federal gov't has the authority to act but even then you still have the secondary hurdle of how the relationship with the local authorities is handled since there have been times such as immigration where courts have ruled that cooperation is voluntary on the basis of it being a "federal responsibility". So you have to thread the needle of finding sufficient federal responsibility while at the same time not falling in the immigration trap of it being "federal responsibility so you cannot bind the states to act etc".

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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?

Mess around with federal funding, but that also has limits with the immigration issue being the first one that comes to mind in this regards.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Tack what do you think of this wording? Not offering this yet.

Mask Mandate Act

To mandate the usage of masks nationwide in response to the COVID 19 pandemic

1. Starting 30 days after the passage of this bill, all regions receiving federal funding must institute mandatory usage of masks in the following situations:
   a. In any means of public transport
   b. In any shops, commerce or other public enclosed spaces; except those dedicated to the consumption of food and drinks
   c. Inside cars, if the people in the car do not live in the same household
2. People who do not follow this rule shall be fined $200
3. This bill shall not apply to people under the age of 6, nor to anyone with health issues where a doctor has prescribed that the usage of a mask would be negative for the patient's health
4. This bill shall automatically sunset on December 31st, 2021; or when the WHO declares the COVID-19 pandemic officially over
5. States may be exempted from having the mask mandate apply within them if they provide a formal request for an exemption to the President and the President accepts this request within 7 days.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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?

Its actually a remnant I forgot to delete. I was going to alter clause 1 and then have a section 6 about funding, but I decided it would be less clunky to do it in one clause.

As for jurisdictional concerns, beyond funding, I am frankly at a loss here. Even IRL Biden's "mask mandate" proposal is merely in the form of a request by the President to the Governors to institute such a mandate, unless that has evolved in recent days.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Mask Mandate Act

To mandate the usage of masks nationwide in response to the COVID 19 pandemic

1. Starting 30 days after the passage of this bill, all regions receiving federal funding for police departments must institute mandatory usage of masks in the following situations:
   a. In any means of public transport
   b. In any shops, commerce or other public enclosed spaces; except those dedicated to the consumption of food and drinks
   c. Inside cars, if the people in the car do not live in the same household
2. People who do not follow this rule shall be fined $200
3. This bill shall not apply to people under the age of 6, nor to anyone with health issues where a doctor has prescribed that the usage of a mask would be negative for the patient's health
4. This bill shall automatically sunset on December 31st, 2021; or when the WHO declares the COVID-19 pandemic officially over
5. States may be exempted from having the mask mandate apply within them if they provide a formal request for an exemption to the President and the President accepts this request within 7 days.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Offering thus in the interim until we can get some legal clarity and have spoken to the President on this matter.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Senators have 24 hours to object.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The amendment is adopted.

I have not received a response to my PM to the President and no subsequent post from him has been forthcoming.

It would really help to have the members express their views at this current stage and it would help even more if they could do so in terms of refining the text.

Absent that in the very near future, I am inclined to pursue a vote.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I motion for a final vote Senators have 24 hours to object.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Seeing no objection and no amendments about the car issue, I am opening a final vote. Senators please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What even is this vote? Lt and Devout.

Cats and dogs living together mass hysteria!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What even is this vote? Lt and Devout.

Cats and dogs living together mass hysteria!

He edited.   

Clearly the hysteria kicked in.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Pretty clear where this is heading.

Aye

This has enough votes to pass, Senators have 24 hours to change their votes.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Now time to cheese this up.

I change my vote to Abstain

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Vote on Final Passage of the Mask Mandate Act:

Aye (3): Devout Centrist, Tack50 and Tedbessell
Nay (2): Jimmy and LT
Abstain (1): NC Yankee

Didn't Vote (0):

This bill has passed the Senate and is sent to the VP for House Action.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

SENATE BILL

To provide for a nationwide police on masks to mitigate and reduce the spread of the Covid 19 Pandemic.

Be it Enacted in both Chambers of Congress Assembled,

Mask Mandate Act

To mandate the usage of masks nationwide in response to the COVID 19 pandemic

1. Starting 30 days after the passage of this bill, all regions receiving federal funding for police departments must institute mandatory usage of masks in the following situations:
   a. In any means of public transport
   b. In any shops, commerce or other public enclosed spaces; except those dedicated to the consumption of food and drinks
   c. Inside cars, if the people in the car do not live in the same household
2. People who do not follow this rule shall be fined $200
3. This bill shall not apply to people under the age of 6, nor to anyone with health issues where a doctor has prescribed that the usage of a mask would be negative for the patient's health
4. This bill shall automatically sunset on December 31st, 2021; or when the WHO declares the COVID-19 pandemic officially over
5. States may be exempted from having the mask mandate apply within them if they provide a formal request for an exemption to the President and the President accepts this request within 7 days.

People's Regional Senate
Passed 3-2-1 In the Atlasian Senate Assembled,