Dems push to mail free masks to all U.S. homes
WASHINGTON — California Democrats in Congress are increasing pressure on their leaders to get all Americans to wear masks to fight the coronavirus pandemic — including by mailing them to every household.
Reps. Ro Khanna of Fremont and Adam Schiff of Burbank wrote a letter this week to House and Senate leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DSan Francisco, asking them to include a free-masks-for-all program in a coronavirus
relief package that is now the subject of intense negotiations on Capitol Hill. Khanna and Schiff have proposed similar bills to distribute free masks through the Postal Service.
They held a live talk Wednesday night on Instagram to promote their efforts, acknowledging they face a tall task but expressing some optimism their provisions could make it into a legislative deal.
And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, DCalif., has been pushing for legislation to make federal coronavirus relief funds to states contingent on whether they have imposed requirements to wear masks in public. She has written a letter to Senate leaders Mitch McConnell, RKy., and Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., calling for such a provision, and she wrote an opinion piece asking for a national mask mandate.
Khanna has teamed up with Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to propose mailing three masks to every American, along with creating free distribution sites in communities. The bill would set aside $5 billion for the effort. It’s a small sum in relation to the more than $3 trillion in relief Democrats are seeking, but Republicans are fighting to pass a slimmeddown bill for less than onethird of that price tag.
Schiff ’s bill would direct the Health and Human Services Department to establish a program that would mail free masks to Americans who ask for them, without putting an appropriations figure behind it.
But it’s not clear how such efforts would succeed. While McConnell has encouraged the use of face masks and President Trump has endorsed wearing them when distancing is impossible, after months of describing them as voluntary, a handful of Republicans have remained staunchly against maskwearing. Republicans are also generally critical of expensive government programs and forcing states to adopt policies through federal mandates.
Pelosi’s office did not respond to questions about whether she’s including the proposals in her negotiations on the coronavirus relief package with Schumer and the Trump administration. Schumer is one of dozens of Democratic cosponsors of Khanna and Sanders’ bill, but his office wouldn’t say whether he has brought it up in negotiations.
Feinstein has brought up her proposals with colleagues, her spokesman told The Chronicle, and will continue looking for ways to get a mandate passed.
Republicans and Democrats also remain far apart on more pressing issues in the coronavirus relief talks, including over whether to include hundreds of billions of dollars of state and local aid that could make or break California’s budget and renew $600aweek jobless benefits that expired last month. After a week of negotiations, a deal remained far off Thursday.
Schiff acknowledged the challenge in his Instagram conversation with Khanna, saying, “There are a lot of competing and other urgent priorities.” But he also argued there was “a real shot” at inserting a mask provision into the package.
“There are so many priorities that the speaker has to bring to the table, and obviously a lot of opposition to doing anything — probably more than half of the Senate GOP conference doesn’t want to do anything,” Schiff said. “They think they’ve done too much anyway.”
But he added, “I’m a little more optimistic, frankly, than I was, because of the — although not particularly consistent — but the change in tune by the president” on maskwearing.
The Burbank Democrat also noted the continuing mask skepticism among some Republicans including Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who tested positive for the coronavirus after attending committee hearings without consistently wearing a face covering. After his diagnosis, Gohmert went to his Capitol office to tell his staff and record a social media video in which he speculated he could have caught the virus from his mask. Scientific consensus is that maskwearing substantially reduces the risk of transmission of the virus.
“We obviously have our work cut out for us when we have our own colleagues like Louie Gohmert running around the Capitol after testing positive and others that still refuse to wear a mask and are undoubtedly pushing that antiscience message back home,” Schiff said.
Khanna agreed: “What was so frustrating about that situation was that he (Gohmert) put staff at risk . ... The fact that people would be taking risks not just with other members of Congress but with staff and exposing them, I just thought that was outrageous.”