Bill would end vaccine rule for the military

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, is pushing new legislation to prevent members of the military from losing their jobs if they refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The bill, introduced Tuesday, would scrap President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for service members and reinstate those who have already been fired for declining the shots. Seven other Republicans are co-sponsoring the measure, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Texas Reps. Michael Cloud, Louie Gohmert and Van Taylor.

“Because of President Biden’s power-hungry, anti-science COVID-19 vaccine mandate, hundreds of valuable American service members are being forced out of our military, taking with them years of subject-matter expertise, careers of selfless sacrifice and lifelong dreams of military service,” Roy said in a release. “This is strategically foolish, profoundly un-American and completely unacceptable.”

The legislation has little chance of moving forward under the Democratic majority in the House. Still, it marks the latest effort from Texas Republicans to rebuke federal vaccine requirements, which state leaders have also challenged in court and through executive orders.

The Biden administration announced the mandate for the armed forces last August, requiring members to get vaccinated later that year. The Army announced last week that it would immediately dismiss soldiers who haven’t yet been inoculated, joining other branches of the military that are already discharging unvaccinated service members.

“Army readiness depends on soldiers who are prepared to train, deploy, fight and win our nation’s wars,” Christine Wormuth, the secretary of the Army, said in a statement last week. “Unvaccinated soldiers present risk to the force and jeopardize readiness. We will begin involuntary separation proceedings for soldiers who refuse the vaccine order and are not pending a final decision on an exemption.”

Though members can apply for religious or medical exemptions, they are very rarely allowed. To date, more than 700 individuals have been discharged for refusing to get the shots, Military.com reported Wednesday. Still, they represent just a fraction of the military — about 97 percent of active service members have received at least one dose, according to the Pentagon.

Members of the military are already required to get several other vaccines, including those for polio, chickenpox and measlesmumps-rubella.