GEORGIA – State legislators are aiming to ban Muslim women from wearing a burqa and other head coverings that might disguise their face when they are driving.

House Bill 3, filed by state Rep. Jason Spencer, R-Woodbine, would subject female Muslim garb under the state’s anti-masking statute — which originally was aimed at the Ku Klux Klan.

Bert Brantley, the commissioner of the state Department of Driver Services, said wearing burqas in state license photographs is already prohibited.

“We have agency rules against any kind of facial covering,” Brantley told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We have to be able to see from below the chin to above the eyebrows.”

However, the loose interpretation of the new bill not only means that women wearing a Burqa could be prohibited from driving. Muslim women who simply wear a hijab could also be at risk of losing their license. 

State Rep. Spencer said his legislation is intended to apply to women operating motor vehicles on public roadways, but the wording also suggests the restriction might apply to any kind of public property.

When asked whether his bill was designed to ban burqas on all public property, Spencer said, “No.” 

But he declined to elaborate on the need for the bill or why women should not be allowed to wear burqas while driving. 

He later told a local affiliate that his bill “is simply a response to constituents that do have concerns of the rise of Islamic terrorism, and we in the state of Georgia do not want our laws used against us and to take advantage of us.”

The proposal is likely to become entangled with the broader debate over “religious liberty” legislation likely to be reintroduced in the General Assembly session that begins Jan. 9. A key proponent of past “religious liberty” bills, state Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, on Wednesday said he opposes Spencer’s bill.

Spencer’s bill has spurred bipartisan opposition. House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta, called the measure “bigoted” and a “direct result of the rhetoric we heard during Donald Trump’s campaign run.

The head of the Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said very few Muslim women disguise their face, but those that do have a constitutional right to do so.

“The bill is a bad solution to a nonexistent problem,” Edward Ahmed Mitchell, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Georgia, told The Huffington Post. “[These Muslim women] are not endangering themselves or anyone else. We have a new president, but not a new Constitution. The bill is unnecessary and unconstitutional, and we intend to oppose it if it goes forward.”