Dear John,
I bet you thought we were done with dumb Covid debates. We’re not. Unfortunately.
On a straight party-line vote late last Thursday night, Republicans in the Texas Senate passed a bill that would prohibit private employers from requiring employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
It’s extraordinary when you think about it. Heeding the Governor’s special session call, my Republicans colleagues have taken a dramatically unconservative step: they created a new “protected class” under the law: COVID vaxx deniers.
What am I talking about?
In Texas you can hire and fire people for any reason or no reason at all. That’s your right as an employer, because your business is your business. You set the rules, and if people don’t like your rules, they have the right to work somewhere else. It’s called “at-will” employment, and it’s the law in 49 states.
But the principle of at-will employment has exceptions: business owners may not condition employment on the basis of a person’s race, age, gender, or religious beliefs. These are “protected classes.”
Senate Bill 7 would add COVID-conspiracy-believers to that short list. As Captain Kangaroo used to tell us, "One of these things is not like the others…"
People are entitled to their own beliefs, of course; but they’re not entitled to a special right to employment that stands above an employer’s right to use their best judgment about how to maintain a productive and safe workplace.
What’s going on here?
A Republican friend of mine summed it up pretty well. He said he never thought he’d see the day when "Republicans are trying to interfere with private business and Democrats are trying to stop them. But that's where we are."
Sure is.
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Senator Nathan Johnson
Texas State Senate, District 16
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