A nurse is filling a needle at a mass vaccine site in Kansas City, Mo.
Orlin Wagner.
Republican lawmakers across the country are determined to take on the Biden administration's insistence that employers require their workers to get vaccinations.
The Kansas legislature will meet in a special session on Monday to fight the vaccine mandates. Courts will likely have the final say on whether the mandates are legal, and some worry that such bold action could further diminish the state's ability to respond to public health crises and put employers in a legal quandary.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration stopped enforcement of its own emergency standard last week because it required companies with 100 employees or more to have workers get vaccinations or submit to regular testing by January 4, 2022.
The Republicans who dominate the legislature in Kansas are unlikely to abandon their plan to give workers the freedom to avoid mandates.
Senate President Ty Masterson said in a statement that the Republicans wouldn't allow the Biden Administration to force businesses to play God or doctor and determine whether a religious or medical exemption is valid or not. We're going to trust individual Kansans.
Everything is thrown against the wall.
Legislation drafted in Kansas is similar to a new law in Iowa that allows people to refuse the vaccine and get unemployment benefits.
Legislators in Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, Wyoming, and North Dakota have already completed special sessions and passed bills to overturn federal mandates.
Businesses in Florida would be fined $10,000 per violation if they didn't offer a number of exemptions to their employees. The governor of Wyoming signed only one of the 20 bills that were written during the special session, a law that gives his office $4 million dollars to challenge federal vaccine mandates.
The new law in Iowa requires employers to waive vaccine requirements for workers if they say it would hurt their health or that of someone they live with, or if they say it would conflict with their religion. They don't have to provide proof. Governors will be elected in five states next year.
The Kansas Emergency Management Act was changed earlier this year to give power to elected county commissioners.
Even if the federal mandate is struck down, new state laws making changes to religious exemptions in Kansas could transform the legal and public health systems for years to come.
The Kansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union believes that the bills are drafted to let the exemptions swallow the rule.
The First Amendment doesn't allow a person to put another person in danger by practicing their religion.
It would mark a fundamental change if employers had incentives to verify the authenticity of employees who invoke religious exemptions.
"It gives a two-tiered system of justice, where the religious rights of people in free society are upheld over public safety," says Brett.
Schools could be affected.
New laws that strengthen religious exemptions for vaccines could result in undercutting laws that require vaccinations for school-aged children.
The chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials says it sets a precedent. It's concerning for childhood vaccinations.
Some people obtained religious exemptions and remained unvaccinated during the previous national measles outbreak. In cases like that, public health officials can often convince religious leaders to allow the use of vaccines in their communities.
He said that some of the religious exemptions aren't really something that religions themselves are calling for.
State and local health officials are under siege by the Pandemic. It's harder to campaign against new laws that could affect vaccinations.
There is not a clear sort of national advocate who can step in.
The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council is one of the groups that drafted model legislation.
Business groups are stuck.
Business groups in Iowa and Kansas are against the new legislation. The National Federation of Independent Businesses and the Kansas Chamber opposed the legislation, and the Iowa Association of Business and Industry said the vaccine waiver law could make it difficult for Iowa companies to comply with the federal rules.
The federal government and the state government are at odds over workplace vaccine mandates, according to an attorney and Drake University professor. It's a bad place to be for everyone.
The courts will ultimately decide how the federal and state rules interact.
Three mandates have been issued by the Biden administration. Companies with at least 100 employees are required to have weekly testing. Federal contractors and health care facilities have to have a testing option.
The bill's passage in the Iowa House of Representatives was managed by Republican Rep. Henry Stone. It shouldn't put them between a rock and a hard place.
Business leaders say the Iowa law is working.
The Iowa law has a lot of language that is different from the typical vaccine exemptions.
It takes away the employer's discretion. They will waive this. It doesn't say that they will enter into an interactive accommodation discussion to see if they can waive them. That's problematic. I believe that it conflicts with what the federal requirements are.
Employers could face fines or lose their ability to do business with the government if the federal government doesn't accept Iowa's waivers. Under the new Iowa law, if companies fire unvaccinated employees, they will have to pay for the unemployment benefits of those workers.
Kim Reynolds joined three multi-state lawsuits against the federal vaccine mandates. The requirement for companies with at least 100 employees is being blocked by a court, but it's not clear what will happen with the other two mandates.
Hill says to not assume the stay is going to stay in place. You need to get your ducks in a row.
She says legal teams will have to help employers on a case-by-case basis.
Does it allow people to work around vaccine mandates of employers as well as respond to what they think is an overreach by the federal government? Hill says that it will remain to be seen.
The effort to end the epidemic was hurt by exemptions.
If the Iowa law allows a lot of people to avoid vaccine mandates, it could hurt efforts to end the coronaviruses epidemic.
The director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa says that if we don't have people get vaccinations, we're going to continue to have pockets of people who aren't protected. Even if they get sick, the evidence is that they don't stay protected for very long. We will continue to go through cycles of illness and death within these groups.
Making it easier to get out of a vaccine mandate drives down vaccination rates, according to a report by the president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. She says that to get an exemption for childhood vaccines, you have to show proof.
It turns out that one extra step makes people less likely to use the exemption. "Any small hurdle can lead to more people getting vaccinations and more protection across the state."
KCUR's politics and government reporter is Abigail Censky. Iowa Public Radio has a state government reporter.
