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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowMore than 50 Indiana House Republicans have signed on to a bill filed for the 2022 legislative session that would restrict employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates and put in place actions to end the statewide public health emergency order.
House Bill 1001 was the first bill filed on Monday for the legislative session that kicks off on Jan. 4, signaling that it is likely a high priority for GOP leadership.
It is nearly the exact text of the bill draft Republican leaders originally intended to pass in a one-day expedited session planned for Monday. Those plans were scrapped after the measure was met with backlash during a seven-hour public hearing.
HB 1001 would effectively force private employers that mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for employees to allow for any medical or religious exemptions—no questions asked.
It also would still put in place the three administrative actions Gov. Eric Holcomb said were needed to end the statewide public health emergency order that’s been in place since March 2020, including securing continued federal reimbursements for SNAP benefits and Medicaid.
The primary difference in this bill versus the draft presented last week is the medical exemption language specifically for “pregnancy or anticipated pregnancy” was removed from the text.
Rep. Matt Lehman, R-Berne, is the author of the bill, and 55 other Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, signed on as co-authors.
“This proposal covers the three items the executive branch asked for as a condition for lifting the state of emergency, while also strengthening the rights of individual workers throughout Indiana,” Lehman said in a written statement on Monday. “I’ll continue working with employers, employees, state leaders and stakeholders to ensure the final form of this legislation leads to the end of the state of emergency, protects our rights and also helps the state manage through the pandemic.”
The bill was met with backlash from the business and medical communities during initial public testimony, saying it goes too far. Vaccine objectors, however, said it did not do enough to stop vaccine mandates.
Some of the state’s largest business associations, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the Indy Chamber of Commerce, the Indiana Manufacturers Association, and the Indiana Restaurant and Lodging Association, all opposed the proposal’s restrictions on businesses mandating vaccines. They also had a problem with language that would require employers to cover the cost of regular testing, if that is offered as an alternative for an employee who does not want to get vaccinated.
Indiana Chamber President and CEO Kevin Brinegar said at the time that while the proposed measures do not ban vaccine mandates, it could discourage employers from implementing a vaccine mandate. One of the Chamber’s top legislative priorities for the 2022 session is to allow employers to make decisions on whether to require the COVID-19 vaccine, without government intervention.
Brinegar did not immediately respond to calls from IBJ on Tuesday, following the formal filing of the bill.
House Democrats have said they support legislation to keep federal funding if Holcomb does not renew the public health emergency. But adding the vaccine mandate language in the same bill holds the federal benefits hostage and “undermines the good intentions of the legislation,” House Democratic Leader Rep. Phil GiaQuinta, said in a statement last week.
GiaQuinta did not immediately respond to IBJ for a request for comment on Tuesday.
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This is unnecessary government regulation.
If anyone still thinks that Indiana Republicans are “pro-business,” with this bill the GOP majority in the legislature lays to rest that notion. If their legislation becomes law business owners will no longer be able to take measures they deemed appropriate or necessary to protect their employees or their customers. The Indiana Republican Party is driving their bus toward the cliff, following the insane paths of their counterparts in Florida, Texas, and other southern states anxious to prove their “Trumpafides.” It all adds up to a disaster-in-waiting that will send the message that “Indiana (is not) a state that works.
COVID cases increasing, a new concerning variant identified likely to become clinically significant, rate of vaccination directly correlating with protection from COVID, its sequelae reduced risk of death and hospitalization, businesses in IN thriving, increasing healthcare costs pre-COVID and related to COVID threatening businesses’ financial health, workforce shortages that can not tolerate additional absenteeism, protecting coworkers and the community through vaccination. Which pieces do Republican lawmakers not understand? Why would new businesses want to relocate to IN if the presumably “business friendly” state government will not allow private businesses to protect their workforce and ensure a safe work environment?
Glad to see Indiana taking measures to protect individual worker’s rights. When a minority is being coerced with heavy handed measures it’s reasonable to level the playing field. Thanks to the Indiana GOP. A state that works and a state that works for workers.
Except when those same workers want to form a union. Then the Indiana GOP will be pro-business again, I have no doubt.
Best job market in years … if you don’t want to get vaccinated, you can find somewhere else that won’t make you get vaccinated.
I’m waiting for the impact this bill could have on the cost and quality of healthcare coverage that workers get. Some places already charge smokers more … how long until increased healthcare premiums for the unvaccinated is the new normal?
All the challenges that Indiana faces and this bill gets made HB 1001, their highest priority. Talk about the intellectual bankruptcy of the Indiana Republican Party.
Joe B. ~ Nationally Delta airlines now charges unvaccinated employees an extra $200 a month for their health insurance. I hope this becomes the new norm by all businesses.
Legislation playing to Trumpist stupidity is the #1 priority of the state GOP now. We had managed to maintain relative Republican sanity during the Trump nightmare, but apparently those days have now passed. The party is flipping its middle finger at the business community, and demonstrating that “pro-life” means nothing because its top legislative priority threatens to cost actual Hoosier lives. The top priority is throwing roadblocks in front of pandemic response, just as the pandemic is worsening yet again. What is wrong with these idiots?
One of the state democratic lawmakers had a good reason for why this is being pushed… playing to the primary base.
Bosma and Long were usually able to navigate and either deep six or materially soften right wing hot button culture bills, if not cheerled from the gov office (RFRA, etc) will see if the new statehouse leaders can have similar success.
Stand on the philosophy of limited government regulation, even when it is not convenient / expediant in the moment. That creates a stronger state.
I have often wondered why, what should be sensible people, be doing this? Here is what I have suspected, but Paul Crugman of the the NY Times says it better than I could:
What’s that about? As many observers have pointed out, claims that opposition to vaccine mandates (and similar opposition to mask mandates) is about maintaining personal freedom don’t stand up to any kind of scrutiny. No reasonable definition of freedom includes the right to endanger other people’s health and lives because you don’t feel like taking basic precautions.
Furthermore, actions by Republican-controlled state governments, for example in Florida and Texas, show a party that isn’t so much pro-freedom as it is pro-Covid. How else can you explain attempts to prevent private businesses — whose freedom to choose was supposed to be sacrosanct — from requiring that their workers be vaccinated, or offers of special unemployment benefits for the unvaccinated?
In other words, the G.O.P. doesn’t look like a party trying to defend liberty; it looks like a party trying to block any effective response to a deadly disease. Why is it doing this?
To some extent it surely reflects a coldly cynical political calculation. Voters tend to blame whichever party holds the White House for anything bad that happens on its watch, which creates an incentive for a sufficiently ruthless party to engage in outright sabotage.
“ To some extent it surely reflects a coldly cynical political calculation. Voters tend to blame whichever party holds the White House for anything bad that happens on its watch, which creates an incentive for a sufficiently ruthless party to engage in outright sabotage.”