Two bills have been filed in the Iowa Senate related to Coronavirus and pandemic mandates, Senate File 45 and Senate File 91. Both bills would make it harder for Iowa to enforce science-based public health measures promoted by the Federal Government.
Over the last three years, conservatives enthusiastically embraced the conspiracy that common sense measures to reduce death and sickness of a deadly pandemic are really leftist attacks on personal freedom and liberty. If liberals are for it, they must be against it. Covid has killed over a million Americans so far. The death toll should never have reached that level, but it did — thanks at least in part to the conservative anti-vax obsession. I just don’t understand.
And they aren’t done yet. Brad Zaun sponsored Senate File 45, a bill “prohibiting the labor commissioner from implementing, enforcing, or conforming to certain federal occupational safety and health standards relating to COVID-19.” The health and safety standards in question are those involving Covid testing and vaccinations in the workplace. Employers would be 1) prohibited from requiring Covid tests or vaccinations and 2) prohibited from determining whether an employee is vaccinated, has had a Covid test, or has ever had the viral infection.
Senate File 91, by Senator Salmon, is “an act relating to powers and duties applicable to state of 2 disaster emergencies and public health disasters.” According to this bill, after the Governor declares a public disaster, only the General Assembly would be allowed to rescind, extend, or amend the state of emergency.
This bill includes explicit religious exemptions for vaccines. It would make it easier for medical practitioners to promote quack medicine. Emergency measures shall not infringe on a fundamental constitutionally protected right unless the measure is justified by a compelling state interest, is narrowly tailored to achieve its specific purpose, and is achieved by the least restrictive means possible. The bill interferes with contact tracing, quarantine measures, and social distancing requirements. Basically, it would reduce the state’s ability to impose most of the common sense measures used to reduce the spread of Covid 19 over the last three years.
If this bill becomes law, the State’s responsibility to reduce the health risk of deadly pandemics and other emergencies will take a back seat to conspiracies, ignorance, science denial, and religious dogma.
Please click on the links and read these bills. Or at least the final section labeled “EXPLANATION.” I know, they are all hard to read, written in dense legalese. But there is so much more detail. As hard as I try, I always feel like my brief summaries and explanations still miss too much.