Few positive signs emerged in the Arkansas Senate this morning for opposition to legislation to encourage people to resist getting COVID-19 vaccinations.
The session opened with approval and speedy addition to the calendar of bills to provide unemployment benefits to people who lose jobs because of refusal to be vaccinated and to add exemptions to federal requirements on vaccinations.
Then came final action on SB 732, Sen. Blake Johnson’s bill to prevent “coercion” of employees to get vaccinated. His bill would allow payment through federal money, should such ever become available, to pay people who lost jobs for refusal to be vaccinated for any “philosophical” reasons. He acknowledged no money was available now. It failed, with a 17-15 vote and three not voting, with 18 needed for passage. I suspect some of the nays were holding back for Sen. Kim Hammer’s coming bill SB 739 to provide vaccination exemptions from federal law.
The vote on Johnson’s bill was expunged and it was added back to the calendar for another vote later. It passed this time, 21-11, though short of the 24 votes needed to adopt the emergency clause for immediate effect if passed.
Johnson drew some questions on his bill about infringing on private businesses by encouraging employees to resist vaccination rules. “Why would you want to work for someone with whom you have such a disagreement?” asked Sen. Jonathan Dismang.
Sen. Jim Hendren said all the bills on COVID were unconstitutional under limits placed on this legislative session. It should have been limited to congressional redistricting. He said the bills also violate federal law and regulation. “We all know how it’s going to end,” he said. Courts will rule in favor of federal supremacy. He said it was “cruel” to suggest there might be payment to people who quit a job over vaccinations. “You’ve made promises you know are unkeepable.”
Employers are trying to stop a conservative disease from ravaging their workforce, Hendren said. He said he opposed mandates. But an exception for employees is also a mandate against private businesses. “That’s just not the conservative position,” Hendren said. He said 90 percent of his workers had been vaccinated without a mandate and he continued to encourage the holdouts.
Sen. Gary Stubblefield contends OSHA isn’t authorized by the Constitution. A long string of federal court cases says otherwise. OSHA is authorized by a federal law allowed under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The usual suspects — Sens. Jason Rapert, Alan Clark and Trent Garner — railed against, among others, the supposed dangers of the vaccine and a supposed religious liberty right to reject the vaccine based on “bodily autonomy.” Rapert cited a religious lobby opinion. Courts so far have generally rejected that argument. Rapert cited the promise of the pursuit of liberty in the Declaration of Independence. If only he felt so strongly about that in the number of other areas in which the legislature has infringed liberty — medical, sexual, association and lots more.
Rapert contends there’s a groundswell in Arkansas in favor of “protection” from the vaccinations. (A majority of those eligible in Arkansas HAVE gotten the vaccinations.) “Stop the overreactions,” he said.