Virginia governor signs bill banning school mask mandates

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngking (R) signed a bill into law Wednesday that made masks optional in all the state’s schools beginning March 1.

"This is a defining moment and decisive victory for parents and kids across the Commonwealth," he said in a statement shortly after it was signed. "We are reaffirming that parents matter by signing SB739, effectively giving parents the ability to opt-out of school mask mandates.”

Three Democrats voted with Republicans in the state House of Delegates, which flipped to Republican control in 2021, to pass the bill earlier in the day.

The bill goes into effect immediately and effectively nullifies the pending lawsuits against Youngkin’s similar executive order against mask mandates by school boards in the state’s more liberal areas, reported The Washington Post.

The bill was spearheaded in the state Senate by Sen. Chap Peterson, a Democrat angry at how his local public school district in Fairfax doubled down on what he called the “Forced Masking of Children,” which he called more political than practical.

“The decision to wear a mask in public – when there is so little correlation with public health – makes it de facto a political decision. In other words, by wearing a mask in a public setting, the wearer is able to communicate a political message, e.g. “I Care About Others” or “I voted for Biden” … You are forcing children to make a political statement that they (and their parents) may not believe. That violates the First Amendment,” Peterson wrote in an open letter to the district’s superintendent.

Peterson was an architect of the Senate bill that forced Virginia schools to resume in-person learning, which was being cited by the school boards to continue requiring masks – erroneously, he insists.

The Senate passed the “mask optional” bill last week, with the House following suit on Monday. Youngkin sent the bill back with a provision to allow it to take effective immediately.

Youngkin campaigned on revoking school mask mandates, issuing an executive order to that effect on his first day in office. He was so confident in the bill’s passage he announced a bill-signing ceremony in the state Capitol before Wednesday’s vote.