Arkansas Joins Coalition of States Opposing Biden Administration’s Vaccine Mandate

COVID-19,

Last Friday Arkansas’ Attorney General’s office joined a coalition of states led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt challenging the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate for private employers.

Last week the Labor Department issued an emergency rule requiring employers with 100 or more workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine or get tested for the disease each week. According to the Daily Signal, the Biden Administration intends to enforce the rule through OSHA.

Missouri and ten other states — including Arkansas — responded by filing a lawsuit in federal court calling the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate “unconstitutional, unlawful, and unwise.”

Besides Arkansas and Missouri, other states joining the lawsuit include Arizona, Nebraska, Montana, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, New Hampshire, and Wyoming.

Attorneys representing the Home School Legal Defense Association and the Christian Employers Alliance joined the lawsuit as well.

READ MORE

Legislature Passes Measures Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

COVID-19, Legislature, ,

On Wednesday the Arkansas Senate passed H.B. 1977 by Rep. Joshua Bryant and Sen. Bob Ballinger, and the Arkansas House passed S.B. 739 by Sen. Kim Hammer and Rep. Joshua Bryant.

The two bills are virtually identical.

Both of them require employers to provide certain exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Under these measures, if an employer mandates COVID-19 vaccines, employees who decline to receive the vaccine could instead provide a negative COVID test to their employer on a regular basis or provide proof of natural immunity from a healthcare provider.

You can read H.B. 1977 here.

You can read S.B. 739 here.

Both bills have passed in the entire Arkansas Legislature. The next step is for one or both of them to go to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.

READ MORE