President Biden’s unprecedented mandates that require tens of thousands of people to take COVID vaccines or face repercussions for their refusal to do so are apparently becoming too toxic for many Democrats.
“Three months ago, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom was turning around his fate in the state’s recall election, many Democrats came to the conclusion that they’d struck political gold. Mandates to get the Covid-19 vaccine weren’t just extremely valuable public health policy but they were electorally powerful too,” Politico wrote last week.
Newsom’s strategy was simple: “nonstop GOP bashing and an unapologetic embrace of vaccine mandates,” as Los Angeles Times reported back in September. That approach should be replicated by the rest of the party in the 2022 midterm elections, argued its architects.
But it looks as though many Democrats are unlikely to proceed with openly supporting the arguably unconstitutional measures, Politico writes, pointing to the latest high-profile dissidents to the policy.
In recent comments, several high-profile Democrats have stated their opposition to vaccine mandates, specifically applied to private businesses. The most recent Democratic lawmaker to voice her concern was Michigan Gov. GRETCHEN WHITMER. Once considered to be Biden’s vice president, Whitmer said she opposes mandates, citing the impact on the state’s workforce — as Michigan grapples with upticks in cases and residents are split on whether or not to get the vaccine.
There are other Democrat governors who oppose the mandates:
PHIL MURPHY (D-.N.J.), shortly before an unexpectedly close re-election win, shied away from embracing a strict vaccine mandate for teachers and other public workers. Gov. KATHY HOCHUL (D-N.Y.), who is running for election after taking over for disgraced former Gov. ANDREW CUOMO (D-N.Y.), has stated her opposition to a “broad-based mandate for all private-sector workers in New York.”
Last Friday, Colorado Democrat Governor Jared Polis announced the COVID “emergency” was over in his state and lifted the indoor masks mandate. While expressing no remorse in enacting the restrictions, Polis said that he “respected” the choice of those who refuse to forgo vaccinations.
Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, who runs for reelection next year, has also criticized COVID vaccine mandates and signed legislation that eases the process of obtaining religious and moral exemptions from getting the COVID-19 vaccine for workers, as well as making those who lose their jobs due to vaccine mandates eligible for unemployment.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said last month that people should “just get vaccinated” and that he had no plans to implement emergency measures even amid a surge of coronavirus cases.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. Senate, two Democrat lawmakers, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, crossed party lines to support the resolution of the GOP caucus to oppose President Biden’s vaccine mandate for large employers.
Senator Manchin argued in a statement that the government “should incentivize, not penalize, private employers whose responsibility it is to protect their employees from COVID-19,” while Senator Tester told NBC News last week that he was not “crazy about mandates.”
While the resolution would need House support to pass, which is considered unlikely, the development will still have some serious implications. Even if there are a handful of Democrat Representatives who either understand the unconstitutional nature of the measure or simply are smart enough to distance themselves from it for political reasons, that arguably would be a major rebuke to the Biden administration.
Biden, however, seems to be determined to proceed with the mandates, as indicated by comments from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki following the Senate vote. The mandates “work,” and the administration will “continue to work to implement these [requirements]” as well as defend them legally, Psaki stressed.
The “souring of some Democrats,” as Politico put it, is accompanied by courts siding with states and private employers who have sued the administration over the mandates. The judges repeatedly pointed to legal and procedural issues with the Biden orders, outright calling them unconstitutional. The New American has covered the cases here, here, here, here, and here.
Democrats have found themselves in a lose-lose situation where “they’re ending up with the worst of all worlds: a blunt policy that won’t go into effect but that will saddle them politically,” per Politico.
While one Democratic strategist called the legal setbacks to the mandates “just another thing added to the pile of sh*t that he’s already been dealing with,” the other said the administration “can’t backpedal now — nor should they,” since “It would f*ck every local elected official who has tried to follow their lead and cause mass confusion,” per Politico.
While the Democratic strategists also voiced concerns over the vax mandates’ politicization potential, the mandates indeed have become one of the pressing issues that divide Republicans and Democrats.
According to the latest Axios/Ipsos poll conducted from December 10-13, 51 percent of Americans say it should be illegal for companies to deny service or employment to the unvaccinated.
“This is sort of getting at the limits of what government can do,” said Cliff Young, president of Ipsos U.S. Public Affairs, per Axios. “Biden doesn’t have strong support for these sorts of initiatives. It’s very conditional.”
