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Republicans Nationwide Against Federal Tasks on Vaccines: NPR

A nurse fills up a syringe of COVID-19 vaccine at a mass vaccination site in Kansas City, Mo. on March 19, 2021.

Orlin Wagner / AP


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Orlin Wagner / AP


A nurse fills up a syringe of COVID-19 vaccine at a mass vaccination site in Kansas City, Mo. on March 19, 2021.

Orlin Wagner / AP

Republican lawmakers around the country appear resolutely receptive to the Biden administration’s insistence that employers require their workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Kansas legislature meets in a special session starting Monday to join the fight with the federal government over vaccine mandates. But the courts will likely have the final say on whether the mandates are legal, and some worry that such bold action could further undermine the state’s ability to comply. respond to public health crises and can put employers in a legal predicament.

Last week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration pause execution its own provisional emergency standard request Companies with 100 or more employees are required to have their employees vaccinated or tested regularly by January 4, 2022.

Now that the rule is in legal limbo, it’s unlikely that the Republican-dominated Kansas legislature will abandon a plan to give workers the freedom to dodge mandates.

“We’re not going to let the Biden Administration force businesses to play God or doctors and determine if religious or medical exemptions are valid,” Republican Senate President Ty Masterson said in a statement. statement of notice of the meeting. “We will trust every single Kansas person.”

Throw everything at the wall

Reflects Kansas’ draft law a new law passed in Iowa expands an individual’s ability to refuse vaccines and keep their jobs – or, get unemployment benefits.

Conservative lawmakers in Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, Wyoming and North Dakota completed special sessions and passed bills to nullify new federal mandates.

Lawmakers in Florida passed a bill that fines businesses $10,000 per violation if they don’t offer some exemptions to their employees. Governor in Wyoming signed only one of 20 bills written during the special session — one that gave his office $4 million to challenge federal vaccine regulations.

NS new Iowa law direct employers to waive vaccine requirements for any worker who says they believe a vaccine will harm their health or well-being or that of someone they live with, or if they say it will conflict with their religion. And they don’t need to provide any proof. Five of the states, including Kansas and Iowa, will elect governors next year.

State lawmakers in Kansas passed a bill earlier this year amending the Kansas Emergency Management Act to switch electricity from local public health officials and the governor and to elected county commissioners.

However, even if the federal mandate is repealed, new state laws that introduce changes to religious exemptions in Kansas could transform the legal and public health systems for years. next.

“It appears that the bills are designed to allow for regulatory gobbling exemptions,” said Sharon Brett, legal director of the Kansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Brett said that there is no religious freedom provision in the First Amendment that allows a person to put others at risk by practicing their religion.

If an employer had an incentive to skip verifying the sincerity of an employee requesting a religious exemption, Brett said that would mark a fundamental shift.

“It basically provides a two-tiered justice system in which the religious rights of people in a free society are given more importance than public safety,” Brett said.

Schools may be affected

New laws that strengthen religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines could also cut laws on books requiring vaccinations for school-age children.

“It sets a precedent,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, medical director of the Association of State and Territories Health Officials. “It’s especially relevant to childhood vaccinations.”

He cited previous national measles outbreaks where some people had applied for religious exemptions and remained unvaccinated. In such cases, Plescia said, public health officials can often lobby religious leaders to convince them of what good vaccines will do in their communities.

But in this case, he said, some of these religious exemptions “are not really what the religions themselves are even calling for.”

State and local health officials face this political and legal battle as they have been besieged by the pandemic. That makes it harder to campaign against new laws that could have far-reaching effects on many vaccines.

“There isn’t one kind of clear nationalist that can get in,” Plescia said.

Meanwhile, he said groups like the conservative US Legislative Exchange Council have drafted model legislation passed by legislatures across the country.

Business teams feel stuck

In Iowa and Kansas, business groups also oppose the new law. The National Federation of Independent Businesses and Kansas Chambers has strongly opposed the law, and the Iowa Business and Industry Association says the vaccine waiver law is just an additional mandate that could pose particular difficulties for Iowa companies in compliance with federal regulations.

“Employers are in this rock and a tough place between the government and the government,” said Denise Hill, a lawyer and Drake University professor who has written a book on the task of vaccinating the workplace. federal government and state government. “And so it’s really a bad place for everyone.”

She said that the court will ultimately determine how federal and state rules interact.

The Biden Administration issued three mandates. Companies with at least 100 employees must require weekly vaccinations or checks. Federal contractors and healthcare facilities must request vaccinations without a testing option.

“To my knowledge, there’s nothing that tells employers they can’t waive, [that] they can’t follow Iowa law,” said Republican Representative Henry Stone, administrator passed the bill in the Iowa House of Representatives. “It shouldn’t put them between a rock and a hard place.”

Stone says he’s heard from business leaders who say the Iowa law is working.

But Hill said that Iowa law has much broader language than the mandatory exemption from standard vaccines on an employer-based basis for the purpose of supporting people with disabilities and sincere religious beliefs.

“It really takes away the employer’s decision-making power,” says Hill. “It says they’re going to give up on this. It doesn’t say they’re going to engage in an interactive discussion about accommodation to see if they can give them up. And so that really matters. subject. I believe it conflicts with federal requirements.”

Hill said if the federal government doesn’t accept the Iowa waivers, employers could face fines or lose the ability to do business with the government. If companies fire unvaccinated employees to comply with federal regulations, they could be stuck paying those workers unemployment benefits under the new Iowa law.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds participated in three multi-state lawsuits Challenge each federal vaccine mandate. Requirements for companies with at least 100 employees being blocked by the court, but it’s not clear what will happen with that or the other two quests.

“Don’t assume that staying will stay in place,” Hill said. “You need to make your ducks consecutively compliant.”

She said advisors and legal teams will have to help employers on a case-by-case basis.

“Does it do what it’s intended to do both in terms of allowing people to work around the employer’s mandate to vaccinate as well as in response to what they think is an overreaching by the government?” federal government? And that, of course, remains to be seen,” Hill said.

Waivers hurt efforts to end the pandemic

If the Iowa law ends up allowing more people to avoid the mandate to get vaccinated, it could hurt efforts to end the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Christy Petersen, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa. “Even if they do get sick … the proof is that they are left unprotected for long. And we will continue to experience the cycle of illness and death in these groups.”

Workplace vaccination missions have been effective, and information from past vaccination campaigns shows that easier getting off duty will reduce vaccination rates, Petersen said. She says that exempting children from vaccines requires a signature or presentation of some kind of evidence.

“It turns out that just going one step further makes people less inclined to use the immunity,” says Petersen. “So any small barrier leads to more people being immunized and provides better protection statewide.”

Abigail Censky is KCUR’s political and government correspondent. Katarina Sostaric is a state government correspondent for Iowa Public Radio.

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