Boston Herald

House members, staff must show vax papers

- By Erin TIERNAN

House members, staff and officers will have to show their vaccine papers or risk an ethics violation or worse if they enter the State House under a new order dictating reopening the building amid the coronaviru­s pandemic.

“The bottom line is that although progress has been made, we’re still very much in the thick of a deadly pandemic and need to take basic public health measures to protect ourselves and colleagues. That begins with this order,” state Rep. Jon Santiago said on the House floor on Thursday, just before a vote would approve the order.

The new rules create a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all members and staff with a requiremen­t that proof be provided to the branch’s human resources department prior to entering the building. Exemptions are available for people with qualifying medical or religious reasons.

But anyone who enters without verifying their vaccinatio­n status could find themselves on the wrong side of an ethics violation or have personal and committee staff reassigned, according to the order.

The measure also indefinite­ly extended emergency provisions allowing remote participat­ion and voting in sessions and hearings.

The order passed 131-28 in a nearly party-line vote on Thursday. The sole defecting Republican voting in favor of the order was Groton Rep. Sheila Harrington.

Republican­s painted the bill as a gross overreach of government during a three-hour floor debate.

“The question needs to be, are proponents pushing this for purely political reasons?” asked Rep. Alyson Sullivan, R-Abington, who pointed out that public health experts agree “that vaccinated people can and do get and spread the virus both to and from other vaccinated individual­s.”

Sullivan called the House vaccine mandate “extreme” and compared it to Japanese internment camps during WWII and the former ostracizat­ion of HIV/AIDS patients.

State GOP members’ opposition wasn’t enough, however, to stem overwhelmi­ng support from Democrats, who hold a supermajor­ity in the chamber.

Rep. Mike Day, D-Stoneham, cut down arguments from GOP members claiming a vaccine mandate “violates constituti­onal rights or impinges on constituti­onal duty of representa­tives” saying they are “not based on the deals, ideas actually espoused in our state constituti­on.”

“Vaccines are essential to fulfill our responsibi­lity to care for our staff, each other and the public and represent the quickest path to a full and safe reopening,” says Rep. William Galvin, D-Canton, who sponsored the bill.

Thursday’s vote came days after House Speaker Ronald Mariano and the House Reopening Working Group revealed recommenda­tions for a fourphase reopening plan that was bereft of any hard deadlines for reopening the building that has been shuttered since March 2020.

 ?? BOSTON HERALD FiLE ?? ‘BASIC PUBLIC HEALTH MEASURES’: House members, staff and officers will have to show their vaccine papers or risk an ethics violation or worse if they enter the State House under a new order dictating reopening the building.
BOSTON HERALD FiLE ‘BASIC PUBLIC HEALTH MEASURES’: House members, staff and officers will have to show their vaccine papers or risk an ethics violation or worse if they enter the State House under a new order dictating reopening the building.

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