President Joe Biden is facing mounting opposition to his private workplace vaccine mandates in Republican-led states, where officials continue to prioritize their own grievances over the safety of their constituents. Texas governor Greg Abbott made headlines this week with an executive order banning “any entity,” including private businesses, from mandating coronavirus vaccines—a directive at odds with the federal vaccine-or-test requirement for companies with more than 100 employees, which Biden announced last month but has yet to issue. Abbott claimed he was responding to “federal overreach” and “bullying” by the Biden administration, a position other Republican officials are seizing upon.
According to the Associated Press, conservatives “in several states are moving to block or undercut” Biden’s private-sector vaccine mandates “before the regulations are even issued.” The emerging fight between Republican governors and the president is in some cases creating the potential “that businesses will be forced to choose whether to break federal or state law.”
“Calls for special legislative sessions to counter vaccine mandates have been heard in states such as Wyoming, Kansas and South Dakota,” the AP reports, noting that Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, “is so far resisting calls to immediately consider a bill that would guarantee people could opt out.” Another Republican governor, Indiana’s Eric Holcomb, is reportedly also holding out against an effort to ban workplace vaccine requirements that his own party is pushing. Montana is reportedly the only state to date that has passed a bill banning private employers from mandating vaccines—a measure being contested in two court cases, per the AP—but Texas is apparently trying to join the party, as Abbott asked the state legislature to pass a law formalizing his order on Monday. And in Ohio and New Hampshire, legislation is reportedly being introduced or drafted.
The extent to which the opposition is working not “in the interests of the people you are governing” but “in the interest of your own politics,” as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki put it Tuesday, is underscored by the fact that many large employers have already implemented their own mandates. American Airlines and Southwest Airlines were among the Texas-based companies that came out on Tuesday against Abbott’s order. “We believe the federal vaccine mandate supersedes any conflicting state laws, and this does not change anything for American,” said a spokesperson for the airline, per the New York Times. Southwest likewise said it would “remain compliant” with the federal rule. A spokesperson for Abbott claimed the governor’s order was “enforceable by state and local law enforcement” as Psaki argued Biden’s legal authority to issue mandates “overrides state law.” All of which has created reported confusion for businesses caught in the middle. “The governor’s mandate yesterday simply is a nuisance for businesses to have to deal with at this point,” Amber Gunst, CEO of the Austin Technology Council, told the Washington Post.
Such fights between federal and state rule will likely be resolved in court, legal challenges that Florida’s Ron DeSantis—who has banned vaccine passports in the name of government overreach—remained committed to mounting Tuesday. The governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, pledged earlier this month to fight Biden’s vaccine mandates “to the gates of hell to protect the liberty and livelihood of every South Carolinian.” Experts say that the states are likely to lose, however, with the Times noting that courts in the U.S. have historically upheld vaccine mandates and prioritized protecting public health. “It’s highly unlikely that you’re going to see any sort of higher-level court consistently agree that this type of intervention exceeds federal authority, when it’s been in place for 50 years,” law professor James Hodge told the outlet.
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Republican Governors Now Racing Each Other to Ban COVID Vaccine Mandates - Vanity Fair
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