Idaho Gov. Brad Little overturned past ban on mask mandates. Now, he’s signed one into law

Sarah Cutler, Idaho Statesman

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — When Idaho Gov. Brad Little left the state for a day in 2021, his lieutenant governor signed an executive order to ban mask mandates. It brought to a head months of simmering resentment and protests over requirements in some Idaho cities and counties to wear masks to help slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Little reversed the ban a day later, and he didn’t mince words about his opinion of the move, calling it an “irresponsible, self-serving political stunt,” the Idaho Statesman reported at the time.

His reversal sought to “restore local control,” his office said, to allow city and county governments to determine their own masking policies. (Idaho never implemented a statewide mask mandate during the pandemic.)

But Tuesday, Little signed a bill that appeared to be an about-face. House Bill 32, which takes immediate effect under an emergency provision, will prohibit local jurisdictions in Idaho from implementing requirements to wear a face mask or shield, including during a future pandemic.

RELATED | Bill prohibiting government and school mask mandates advances to Idaho Senate

Little’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening from the Statesman on his signing of the bill.

It’s one of a raft of bills this legislative session to block public health mandates and rein in regional public health districts’ independence. In testimony on the bills, lawmakers expressed disbelief that masks were an effective health measure, while, at other times, voiced a desire to give priority to individual freedoms.

Speaking on the Senate floor about the bill to ban mask mandates, Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa, said such government directives during the pandemic “eroded” public trust in health districts in Idaho.

The bill, he said, is “saying that we value public health, but we value individual freedoms just as much, if not more.”

Lawmakers oppose ‘overreach’ in public health efforts

Rep. Robert Beiswenger, R-Horseshoe Bend, sponsor of the bill to ban mask mandates, told a House committee in January that the legislation aimed to counteract “overreach” during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Statesman previously reported.

That sentiment has become a consistent theme in lawmakers’ discussions this session. During a presentation of a separate bill, which aims to block private businesses from requiring a medical intervention — such as a vaccine — as a condition of employment, sponsor Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Moscow, framed the bill as an effort to “codify an individual’s right to decide such a seminal and personal issue for himself or herself.”

“The decision as to what a citizen puts into his or her body involves a personal choice that should be made free from undue outside influence or intimidation,” Foreman said.

RELATED | New bill in Idaho Legislature seeks to prevent government mask mandates

And during a presentation of Senate Bill 1031, which seeks to remove public health districts’ “broad authority to take sweeping actions for public health, including preventive measures,” Lenney, made a similar case.

“Yes, public health matters, but not at the cost of individual freedoms,” he said on the House floor. “I don’t think we should ever sacrifice our rights for perceived safety.”

Assertions like these show the possible unintended consequences of public health mandates, said Elena Savoia, co-director of the Emergency Preparedness Research Evaluation and Practice Program at Harvard University’s School of Public Health.

“We talk a lot about trust in government and science, but little about how much government officials and scientists trust the public they serve,” Savoia told the Statesman by email. “Trust is bidirectional, and sometimes one reflects the other.”

She cited a “post-COVID realization” that “mandates may not be the only or best strategy to have people follow public health recommendations, regardless of the level of evidence supporting the policy.”

For example, Swedish government officials, Savoia said, told her they didn’t need to set public health mandates, because they trusted that the public would follow government recommendations.

But Dr. David Pate, former CEO and president of St. Luke’s Health System, called the Legislature’s public health bills part of a growing “anti-science movement” taking hold nationwide. The public has become increasingly skeptical of the input and expertise offered by medical professionals and scientists, he told the Statesman. (No medical doctor has served in the Legislature since 2022, the Statesman previously reported.)

Lawmakers are largely “dealing with a subject that they don’t know very much about,” Pate said. They’re drawing on their experience of COVID-19, which was highly contagious — but not as deadly to those who did get sick — as another pandemic might be. COVID-19 was also especially deadly for elderly people, but a future pandemic could disproportionately affect children, he said.

Pate expressed concern that legislators were not engaged in planning for a future pandemic — including identifying public health measures that could be less inflammatory than mask mandates.

“They haven’t, to my knowledge, passed a single bill that would improve our preparedness,” he said. “But they’re entertaining — and it looks like potentially passing — bills that will actually hamper our response.”