On Tuesday, a bill that would ban vaccine mandates and disclosure in the public sector passed the House State and Local government committee.
“The first section of House Bill 28 would disallow public institutions from requiring the disclosure of immunization status with regard to COVID-19,” said the bill’s primary sponsor Rep. Savannah Maddox (R-Dry Ridge). “The second section of this bill will disallow post-secondary institutions from requiring a disclosure of immunization status to COVID-19.”
The last two provisions in the bill would see would the ban of “vaccine passports and protect privacy rights” and would allow parents to opt-out of the COVID vaccine based on conscientious objection.
There was a committee sub and amendment on the bill, with the original bill applying these four provisions to the private sector in business. But, several entities came forward to oppose this specific portion in the private sector, as well as those that would see the removal of “local control.”
Local control is something that the House and Senate GOP have argued for throughout the pandemic. But, as bills on the prohibition on mask and vaccine mandates have moved through the legislature, politicians from both chambers say nothing is more local than the control of individual choice.
“One thing you can count on from the Kentucky League of Cities, I hope you all view it this way, is that we are consistent when it comes to our defense of home rule,” said J.D. Chaney, the executive director of KLC. “Local decisions are best made at the local level. This legislation would impact city and county governments being able to make those decisions at the local level.”
Chaney talked about the fear of any mandate imposed on the local level and that’s it’s not a vaccine issue. One of those was the Biden mandate that mandated to get the vaccines.
“We were fearful we were going to lose a lot of our public safety employees,” Chaney said.
Another area that drew attention referred to religious and education nonprofits and the definition of public entities. Jason Hall, the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, noted that there wasn’t anything in the amendment filed by Rep. Samara Heavrin (R-Leitchfield).
“We would have a serious objection to including religious nonprofits and other nonprofits in the definition of a public entity and creating separate regulatory frameworks for public and private entities for which religious nonprofits would end up on the public side of that line,” Hall said.
Maddox said she was willing to look at it more closely, but it was the first she heard of it in the six months the bill had been vetted.
“I’m happy to look at it, but the intention is to create as broad protections as possible for Kentuckians to be able to decide themselves whether or not they want the vaccine,” Maddox said.
When voting to pass the bill, which now heads to the House floor, fellow Northern Kentucky Rep. Buddy Wheatley (D-Covington) expressed his opinion during his no vote.
“As a former public servant and a fire chief, to be able to have the ability to home rule, the ability to direct the forces, basically, with those firefighters and law enforcement, whom I dealt with quite a bit also, to say to them as they come to work each day ‘We don’t have the ability to really control our workforce, or really have all the tools we need to make sure everybody is as safe as possible,’” Wheatley said.