A group of Florida Democrats in Congress unveiled legislation on Friday aimed at allowing local governments and private businesses to impose their own COVID-19 rules — and ignore any state laws that are imposed by the Florida Legislature.
U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel introduced the Let Our Cities And Local businesses Help Employees Achieve Long-Term Health (LOCAL HEALTH) Act, a bill that would allow local governments and private businesses to pursue COVID-19 mitigation efforts such as a vaccine or mask mandates. Frankel said the U.S. Constitution’s interstate commerce clause, which gives Congress the power to regulate commerce between states, gives Washington the authority to overrule any vaccine passport or mask mandate bans that become law at the state level.
“This seems to be a race to the bottom by governors wanting to score points with a certain political wing of the country,” Frankel said. “Communities that want to follow CDC guidelines should be supported, not punished.”
Frankel said the new legislation is a direct response to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ special session scheduled for later this month where the Republican-controlled Legislature will take up bills to prevent vaccine mandates enacted by businesses.
The Florida lawmakers backing the bill, which include former governor and potential 2022 DeSantis opponent Charlie Crist, along with U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Darren Soto, were joined by Democrats from Georgia and Texas, states where governors have also voiced opposition to vaccine mandates.
“When our governor sees your governor do something, he has to do something crazier,” said Texas U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia. “It seems like our governor has a feud with your governor on how they can outdo themselves.”
Frankel said the bill is being introduced as stand-alone legislation for now, meaning there’s a small chance it becomes law in the coming months unless it is attached to a bigger, must-pass bill by the end of the year.
Soto said the bill is a messaging response from Democrats in Washington to DeSantis.
“This is our direct response to this ridiculous special session,” Soto said. “This bill affirms the right of public and private employers to implement measures to limit the spread of COVID-19.”
The bill would allow municipalities and private businesses to impose their own mandates, but it would not require them to do so. As an example, Frankel highlighted Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia, who imposed weekly testing or a vaccine requirement for city employees.
“We require the public to come in with a mask mandate to this day,” Petrolia said.
But mandates, if they are implemented at the local level, could prove complicated. Petrolia said the city was unable to get its police union to agree to a vaccine or testing mandate, though the firefighters union and Service Employees International Union agreed to it. She estimated that 85% of firefighters in Delray Beach are vaccinated and 70% of SEIU members working in Delray Beach are vaccinated.
Crist also said local school districts should be able to impose their own rules without fear of reprisal from the governor. He said his 5-year-old niece contracted COVID-19 shortly after returning to the classroom this fall and caused his 2-month-old niece to also contract COVID-19 10 days ago.
“I’m not the only example of it, 60,000 of our Floridians are now dead — more than the Vietnam War,” Crist said.
The bill is the latest example of COVID-19 politics among Florida legislators, as Florida Republicans have rallied around DeSantis’ anti-vaccine mandate position after spending months largely distancing themselves from the debate.
A majority of Florida’s 17 Republicans in Congress publicly backed DeSantis’ lawsuit against vaccine mandates for federal employees, contractors and private businesses with more than 100 employees.
But while DeSantis has the advantage of a Republican-controlled Legislature in Tallahassee that largely supports his positions, Democrats in Congress must contend with a razor-thin majority and compounding legislative headaches that make passing Frankel’s bill in the short term a tall order.
“We’ll never know the human and financial toll of (DeSantis’) inaction, but we can mitigate it with legislation like this,” Wasserman Schultz said.
