DeSantis suing Biden

DeSantis is suing President Biden’s administration over a federal vaccine mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees, but the rule issued by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration already includes exemptions for religious or medical reasons, or if a worker is regularly tested for COVID-19 and wears a mask.

Despite the similarities, DeSantis phrased the bills as “striking a blow for freedom.”

“We’re going to be standing up against the Biden mandates, and we’re going to be better as a result of it,” he said.

Other provisions in the bill will explicitly state parents have the right to decide whether their children wear masks to school. School boards across the state enacted mask mandates for students, defying a DeSantis executive order and state rules prohibiting such requirements.

The order relied on the newly enacted Parents’ Bill of Rights, which ensures broad authority for parents over their child’s learning and medical decisions but doesn’t specify that parents can opt out of any mask mandate.

The bill also will allow parents or guardians to sue a school board and be awarded attorneys’ fees and court costs over any mask mandate.

Additional measures will block medical and religious exemption information filed by workers that appears in any investigation of a business from public disclosure (HB 3B/SB 4B), and remove the authority of the state health officer to require vaccinations and quarantines (HB 7B/SB 8B). A fourth bill, HB 5B/SB 6B, will take a step toward removing Florida from OSHA, ordering DeSantis’ office to develop a plan and setting aside $1 million for the project. Florida would have to set up its own workplace safety enforcement agency, and its application would have to be approved by OSHA, a process that could take years.

Legislative leaders said they think it’s necessary to withdraw from OSHA in light of the vaccine requirement.

“If the Department of Labor and OSHA are going to be weaponized as a way to hold hostage business throughout the state of Florida, no problem. We want a different plan, we want out of OSHA, we’ll set up our own regulatory authority and say goodbye to the federal government,” said House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor.

All of the bills are effective when they are signed into law. If they are passed during next week’s special session, they will be in place nearly two months before Jan. 4, the date Biden’s OSHA rule will take effect.