Florida GOP aims to placate anti-vaxxers. DeSantis gets to chest-thump in the end | Editorial

There’s the chest thumping that Gov. Ron DeSantis does during his “Don’t tread on Florida” events. Then there’s the reality of what Republicans can actually accomplish without alienating the businesses that helped put them in office.

Florida’s special legislative session, called by DeSantis to undermine new federal COVID-19 vaccination mandates, begins Monday. Conspicuously absent from the bills lawmakers will consider are the governor’s proposals to punish businesses by making them liable for medical harm arising from mandatory vaccination and to strip them from COVID-19 legal protections if they impose a mandate, the Herald reported this week.

In many ways, this special session is little more than a public performance designed to show that Republicans are protecting “freedom” — meaning, a small number of unvaccinated workers at the expense of everyone else. All of that comes courtesy of Florida taxpayers, who are footing the bill to send more than 100 lawmakers to Tallahassee outside their regular annual session that starts in just two months.

Creating loopholes

That’s not to say the special session won’t inflict further harm on Florida businesses and on President Biden’s efforts to boost vaccination rate through employer mandates. Republicans are looking to grant anti-vaxxers a wishlist by creating as many loopholes in these mandates as possible.

The main bill under consideration (Senate Bill 2B and House Bill 1B) forces employers to offer a series of exemptions from having to get the vaccine. Those include exemptions for religious or medical reasons. With the exception of people who have had a severe allergic reaction to a vaccine, very few people cannot get vaccinated. Most common medical conditions such as diabetes make people more vulnerable to the coronavirus — not the shots. So we wonder how many credible doctors would be willing to sign off on this.

Also included under the exemptions is pregnancy, even though pregnant women are more vulnerable to COVID-19 and the benefits of the vaccines outweigh its potential risks, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

And then, there’s the “anticipated pregnancy” exemption. Could anyone with a womb claim that exemption? Given that many women believe the shots lead to infertility, though there’s no evidence of that, that doesn’t sound far fetched. The Department of Health would be tasked with determining who falls under this category. Based on the head of the agency, vaccine skeptic Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, we don’t expect that process to make much sense.

‘Natural immunity’ argument

Employers also would be barred from imposing a mandate if a worker can provide proof of “COVID-19 immunity,” which seems to cover people who had a previous infection. Just like eating your fruits and vegetables, DeSantis and vaccine skeptics have promoted “natural immunity” as the equivalent or better than the “processed” immunity you get from the vaccine, even though the latter provides stronger protection, according to a CDC study.

Some of the other exceptions proposed by lawmakers do seem more reasonable, such as allowing unvaccinated employees to take periodic COVID tests at no cost to them. That, however, is already an option under Biden’s mandate. So, what’s the point of this special session other than to give irresponsible, unvaccinated workers an official stamp of approval from the Legislature?

Where the GOP is today with relation to businesses is a long way from where the party was just earlier this year, when the Legislature passed a law that gives businesses immunity from COVID-related lawsuits. It’s also in sharp contrast to where the party was before the pandemic. Just two year ago, DeSantis signed a law without fanfare to require healthcare providers enter children’s immunization records into a state registry. The legislation was approved almost unanimously despite opposition from anti-vaccine groups that protested outside the Capitol.

Back then, both political parties saw these groups as tinfoil hat types. Today, one party has happily welcomed them into its tent.

OSHA withdrawal

Another bill under consideration would allocate $1 million to the governor’s office to come up with a plan to withdraw Florida from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency that will enforce Biden’s mandates. The legislation calls for the creation of a state agency — aka, more state bureaucracy and cost to taxpayers so Republicans can stick it to Biden.

As the Herald reported, some experts believe a new state agency likely wouldn’t reduce the regulatory burden on businesses because it would have to be as effective as OSHA. So why do we need a new agency? Perhaps so that Florida Republicans have control over a new bureaucratic machine for their own political endeavors. It’s not lost on us that Senate President Wilton Simpson and another top GOP lawmaker own companies that have been fined by OSHA in the past for workplace issues.

Who’s truly benefiting from sending legislators to Tallahassee starting Monday? The small, but loud, minority of workers who confuse vaccine resistance with freedom. And, of course, a governor for whom it is politically expedient to appeal to vaccine skepticism in the midst of a pandemic that has killed more than 60,000 Floridians.

This story was originally published November 11, 2021 at 6:00 AM.