Opposition to vaccine mandates goes from extreme to mainstream

Requirements are already part of every state’s law — but COVID changes equation

WASHINGTON — Like other Republican governors around the country, Tate Reeves of Mississippi reacted angrily to the coronavirus vaccine mandates President Joe Biden imposed on private businesses. Declaring the move “terrifying,” he wrote on Twitter, “This is still America, and we still believe in freedom from tyrants.”

There is a deep inconsistency in that argument. Mississippi has some of the strictest vaccine mandates in the nation, which have not drawn opposition from most of its elected officials. Not only does it require children to be vaccinated against measles, mumps and seven other diseases to attend school, but it goes a step further than most states by barring parents from claiming “religious, philosophical or conscientious” exemptions.

Resistance to vaccine mandates was once a fringe position in both parties, more the realm of misinformed celebrities than mainstream political thought. But the fury over Biden’s mandates shows how a once-extreme stance has moved to the center of the Republican Party. The governors’ opposition reflects the anger and fear about the

COVID-19 vaccines among constituents now central to their base, while ignoring longstanding policy and legal precedent in favor of similar vaccination requirements.

“Republicans care about getting beyond this pandemic every bit as much as Democrats do,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. But, he added, “politicians are certainly happy to exploit this issue for political gain, which is why I think the Republican governors are up in arms.”

Biden also imposed vaccine mandates on federal workers and many health care workers. But Republican outrage is really boiling over his plan to require all private-sector businesses with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccines or weekly testing for their workforces.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas called the president’s move “a power grab.” Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina promised to fight Biden in court, to “the gates of hell.” Gov. Greg Gianforte of Montana called it “unlawful and un-American.” Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama called the move “outrageous” and “overreaching.”

But each of these states — indeed, every state in the country — already mandates certain vaccinations for children and sometimes for adults, including health care workers and patients in certain facilities.

Mississippi, which has one of the lowest coronavirus vaccination rates in the nation, has consistently led the United States in childhood vaccinations — a point of pride for its health officials and many of its lawmakers. Alabama, similar to Mississippi, also refuses to acknowledge “philosophical, moral or ethical” exemptions to mandatory childhood vaccinations.

Experts in public health law agree Biden is on solid legal footing because his actions are grounded in federal workplace safety laws. They say Republican governors who insist vaccine mandates are an intrusion on personal liberty need a refresher on their own state policies.

“That is pure hypocrisy,” Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University, said of Reeves’ remarks. “Even religious exemptions are swept away in the state of Mississippi, so how can he say that an order that a president makes to keep workers safe, with authorization by Congress, is an overreach or in any way unconstitutional?”

A spokesperson for Reeves, Bailey Martin, rejected Gostin’s assertion. “The only people being hypocritical are President Biden and his administration, who for months have said they would not mandate the vaccine,” she said in an email, adding that Reeves would use “every tool at his disposal” to block the mandates.

Republican suspicion of vaccines was building before the pandemic; when Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, he rejected established science by raising the debunked claims that vaccines cause autism. Now some of the governors argue that given the country’s outsize divisions and widespread suspicion of Washington, federal intervention would be counterproductive. It would be best, they say, to let state officials continue making the case that the vaccines are safe and effective and to allow people to make decisions themselves.

“I’m trying to overcome resistance, but the president’s actions in a mandate hardens the resistance,” Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. School mandates, he said, “have always come at the state level, never at the national level. And so this is an unprecedented assumption of federal mandate authority that really disrupts and divides the country.”

Jha said Biden had in fact done Republicans a favor.

“What the president does is, he creates political cover for Republican leaders, who will scream loudly because it’s politically expedient,” he said. “But I think many of them are actually feeling relieved, because now they don’t have to do the hard work of convincing their constituents.”

Indeed, when the highly infectious delta variant began ripping through their communities and overwhelming their hospitals, many elected Republicans — notably, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader — started pleading with people to get vaccinated. Most of the Republican governors criticizing Biden have said much the same.

Even as Reeves blasted Biden on Twitter, he took care to declare the vaccine itself “lifesaving.” McMaster held a news conference last month to encourage South Carolinians to take the shots, saying, “Now is a great time to do it while we’re getting ready for the fall.” In Alabama, Ivey has adopted the same stance as Biden: “It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for the deadly coronavirus surge, she said recently.

Three-quarters of American adults have had at least one COVID-19 shot, which suggests growing acceptance of the vaccine. Biden’s move is aimed at the roughly 80 million Americans who are eligible but remain unvaccinated. Experts call it an unprecedented exercise of presidential authority to encourage vaccination.

“It’s really uncharted waters,” said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, which represents state immunization officials.