FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Legislation to ban masking statewide — with health and safety carve-outs — will be introduced today in Albany with the support of a broad coalition of civil rights and faith leaders, Playbook has learned.

The bill, which is sponsored by Democrats James Skoufis in the state Senate and Jeffrey Dinowitz in the state Assembly, targets “masked hate” and “masked intimidation.” It would reinstate and strengthen a ban that was repealed during the Covid pandemic. It would also create the crime of masked harassment as a violation, amend the crime of second-degree aggravated harassment to include masked harassment and require colleges to inform new students that masked harassment is a crime.

Black and Jewish advocates tout the measure as necessary to curb hate crimes while the NYCLU and others have preemptively criticized a ban as an undermining of New Yorkers’ rights and health.

“As a son of the Jim Crow South, I refuse to watch our communities be once again terrorized by hateful individuals avoiding accountability with anonymity,” Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said in a statement.

“There is no constitutional right to intentionally conceal your identity while conducting a Jew-hunt inside of a New York City subway,” said Mark Treyger, chief executive of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is also supportive. “Too often masks are used as tools for crimes of hate, lending anonymity to those targeting New Yorkers because of their backgrounds,” he said.

The legislation will be introduced as the next stage of the #UnMaskHateNY campaign that has included polling showing support for anti-masking laws.

It’s certain to face pushback.

Hundreds of health care workers wrote earlier this month to city and state officials opposing a mask prohibition, saying that even with exceptions for health reasons, a ban would deter the use of a proven life-saving tool.

And the NYCLU’s Allie Bohm has said that criminalizing masks “opens the floodgates” for racially biased enforcement, threatens to exile people with disabilities from society and undermines protections for political protesters. — Emily Ngo