LEFT JAB, RIGHT CROSS
Baker feeling it from both sides in vax showdown
The RNC plans to file a lawsuit to block President Joe Biden’s sweeping vaccine mandate, but Bay State teachers and school districts are pressuring Gov. Charlie Baker to extend a vaccine mandate even further.
“You’re seeing the Republican National Committee respond, you’re seeing nationally, Republicans are going to be filing suits, and I think it’s important for people to push back,” said Massachusetts GOP Chair Jim Lyons, in reference to the RNC’s pending suit.
Although Republican governors including South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp have also threatened legal action against Biden’s administration, a Baker spokesperson would not say whether or not Baker, a Republican, would jump into the fray.
Instead, he said Baker “agrees with the President that the vaccines are the best possible tools to get life back to normal,” and had directed municipalities to require employees, including in schools, to be vaccinated.
Lyons wouldn’t weigh in on Baker’s response to the mandate, but said he himself is against vaccine mandates and stands with the Republican governors challenging the rule, as well as with the RNC.
Republican lawmakers have also filed legislation against vaccine mandates, including state Rep. Alyson Sullivan, R-Abington, who filed a bill following Biden’s announcement that would both prohibit vaccination requirements and vaccine passports.
On the other side of the aisle, Massachusetts Democrats implored Baker to mandate vaccines.
“We’d all be better off if Charlie Baker would follow President Biden’s lead and be guided by science, not politics,” Chair Gus Bickford said in a statement.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association has also taken shots at Baker for failing to implement a teacher vaccine mandate.
Some school districts have taken matters into their own hands, beginning the process of implementing vaccine mandates for school staff and students.
Tracy O’Connell Novick, who serves on the Worcester School Committee, said the district was “frustrated” that it had to initially make its own decisions about closing schools early in the pandemic and implementing mask mandates. “Plenty of us out here in the field would really like at least once for the state to step up and actually take its own responsibility,” she said.
She added that the committee and teachers’ union are currently negotiating how to implement a vaccine mandate, and the School Committee also sent a letter to their state delegation to work toward a student mandate.
Belmont’s School Committee and teachers’ union ratified a teacher vaccine mandate Friday morning, and Amherst’s and Pelham’s joint school district took steps in a School Committee meeting Wednesday that will likely lead to both a student (age 16 and over) and staff vaccination mandate.
“There is certainly tension between issues of local control and state control,” Superintendent Michael Morris said. “(It’s) certainly been an area that’s caused a lot of confusion in our community.”