Unmask Our Kids Act of 2022

Mr. President, for the past 2 years, our Nation's kids have suffered. They have suffered socially, academically, and psychologically at the hands of Democratic politicians, the Biden administration, and their political bosses in the teachers unions.

Although kids are at the lowest risk of hospitalization and death from the Wuhan coronavirus, they have endured and they continue to endure some of the most excessive, extreme, and suffocating COVID restrictions of any population in our country. This treatment has been nothing short of cruel. The politicians and the neurotic public health obsessives who enforce these policies should all hang their heads in shame.

There are few things in a kid's life, outside of family and church, that are more important to them than their school. For them, open and happy schools are precious. But for teachers union bosses like Randi Weingarten, they are just useful hostages.

For the better part of a year, teachers unions shut down our schools while they shook down politicians for more funding and benefits that they promised would allow them to reopen safely. Yet they kept schools closed. They kept kids masked.

Desperate parents watched their socially isolated kids fall behind while they engaged in Zoom schools, but the unions still dragged their feet.

When schools finally reopened, our kids faced insane coronavirus protocols. They weren't allowed to sit with friends at lunch. They weren't allowed to play at recess. They had to eat outside on freezing- cold days. And every moment of every day at every school, they were forced to wear a mask.

Confused and hyper kids naturally often rebelled, and they have been reprimanded and they have been punished for simply trying to play, trying to make friends, trying to breathe a little easier.

Some parents may think that masks work for their kids, and that is fine. If they want to, they can put their kids in a mask. They should be able to choose. But under Democratic-forced masking policies, parents have no choice at all. Tragically, but predictably--not just predictably--predicted--these absurd policies have had severe psychological effects on our kids. Suicide and mental health problems have skyrocketed in the past 2 years. Grades have plummeted, while depression has surged. And as is so often the case, those with the least have suffered the most.

But when parents dared to complain on behalf of their kids, they were condemned by teachers union bosses and by Democratic politicians as anti-science and extremists. They were investigated when Attorney General Merrick Garland sicced the Feds on parents who were simply going to school boards to protest these stupid policies. The Secretary of Education threatened to withdraw Federal funding from States and schools who did not have mask mandates.

Thankfully, the tide has begun to turn. Sometimes I hear the phrase ``the science changed.'' The science hasn't changed. What has changed is that there is an election coming and Democrats have seen the polling on this question. Now they are running scared, and they want to pretend that they didn't force your kid to wear a mask for 2 years.

You see it in States that are run entirely by Democrats: California, New Jersey, New York, the President's own Delaware. Just yesterday, across the river in Virginia, the State senate, to include many Democrats, voted not just to allow parents a choice but to prohibit mask mandates by local schools.

Yet, in many places, forced masking remains. Kids as young as 2, 3, 4 are still being forced to wear hot, restrictive, and ineffective masks for hours on end. Yes, ineffective because almost all those kids are wearing cloth masks, which don't even work. And that is not me speaking; that is the CDC speaking. These masks don't even work. Yet the kids are forced to wear them all day long.

I can tell you that most Democratic politicians don't think they work either. How do we know that? Look at the candidate for Governor in Georgia, Stacey Abrams--or maybe I should say the Governor of Georgia, since she still refuses to concede the 2018 election and many of my Democratic colleagues have endorsed her view that she is somehow the shadow Governor of Georgia. Just last week, photos emerged of her sitting in classrooms with masked kids grinning ear to ear, the only person not wearing a mask in the classroom.

Also, Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California, was yucking it up at SoFi Stadium when the Rams played the 49ers, taking pictures--without a mask--with Magic Johnson and a bunch of other celebrities, while he enforced one of the most onerous mask mandates in the country.

What about Eric Garcetti, whose nomination to be the Ambassador to India is in front of the Senate right now, who said that pictures of him without a mask on are fine because he was holding his breath--I guess like Bill Clinton, who didn't inhale.

Barack Obama, pictures recently emerged of him standing outside-- outside--on the beach, without a mask, while all the peons who are building his multimillion-dollar beach compound were forced to wear a mask in front of him.

And I will let you in on something. The same goes for Democratic Senators. I was in a hearing this week. It was in a small, closed room. Not a single Democratic Senator wore a mask in that hearing in that room. The catch is, the TV cameras weren't on, so there wouldn't be video of them sitting in that closed room without a mask on.

But masks in school have become symbols of control and fear. They are not instruments of public health. It is past time for the mask mandates to end and for parents across this country to have a choice. That is why I am asking the Senate to pass my legislation today to require schools that receive Federal funding to give parents a simple choice on whether their kids should wear a mask.

If my Democratic colleagues will join me, we can get this done now, today. That is why I urge them to support this bill. And I ask, as if in legislative session, unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3604, which is at the desk; further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I would simply reply to the remarks of the Senator from Washington, she asserted that I or others who oppose these mask mandates think that we know better. That is the whole point, though. It is not that we think we know better; I think that you, as a parent, know better. You know what is best for your child--not some Democratic politician, not some liberal superintendent, not some neurotic public health obsessive.

And, apparently, the Democrats have no problem using these Federal funds when it suits their neurotic policies. After all, the Department of Education last year threatened Federal funding for States and schools that did not permit mask mandates. The whole point of this exercise is this: the Democrats who think they know better than parents to make the choices for the parents' kids.

I am disappointed today that my Democratic colleagues want to continue to see kids forced to wear masks in schools across America, but, trust me, change is coming one way or another. It will be because Democratic politicians, like Gavin Newsom, run for the hills or because the American people repudiate them all in November.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I have said before that we all want to make sure our schools can stay safely open for in-person learning. But based on this legislation, it is not clear that is true for all of my Republican colleagues.

Look, this is straightforward. If you want education decisions to happen at the local level, you do not tie the hands of State and local officials when they are trying to keep their students and educators safe. And if you want schools to be able to stay safely open and bring some stability and certainty back to our classrooms, you don't cut schools off from the resources they need just because you think you know better than the parents and local officials about how this pandemic is progressing in their community or how they should use tools like masks.

I am a former preschool teacher, parent advocate, and school board member. But let's be honest, you don't need classroom experience to see that right now the very last thing we should be doing is denying schools the tools and resources to help kids learn safely. The data is clear. We have real work to do to help our students make up for an incredibly tough 2 years.

Now, Democrats actually passed legislation--the American Rescue Plan--which invests specifically in helping our students recover academically and mentally. The proposal from the Senator from Arkansas would put our students' recovery and safe in-person learning in jeopardy. It would take those important public health decisions, which should be based on local conditions, away from those communities and slash funding for students and schools right when they need us the most.

Now is not the time to pull the rug out from under students in schools. Parents, educators, and, most of all, kids have been through enough. I object.