Biden’s COVID vaccine rule pushes SC House GOP leader to call for caucus meeting ‘soon’
Responding to President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine requirements, South Carolina’s Republican House speaker wants his chamber’s GOP members — not the entire House — back in Columbia to address the administration’s “clearly inappropriate actions.”
In a two-page letter sent Friday to the House GOP Caucus obtained by The State, Speaker Jay Lucas told House Republicans he’s asked House Majority Leader Gary Simrill, R-York, to schedule a meeting soon, encouraging all members to show up.
The meeting is slated to happen Sept. 22 in Columbia.
“I have heard from many of you that it is our responsibility to challenge these clearly inappropriate actions. I agree and I believe that the vast majority, if not all, of our caucus agrees,” Lucas, R-Darlington, wrote.
Lucas’ letter is sure to spark frustrations within the Legislature, as many have called on Lucas and Senate President Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, to call their respective chambers back to Columbia to address their own school mask rules included in the state budget.
The move also comes ahead of midterm elections, when the governor, all 124 House members and other officials are up for reelection.
“It is my belief that the administration is taking this opportunity to continue to exploit that political division for their own perceived political gain,” Lucas wrote.
To stop the COVID-19 surge, Biden announced Thursday new federal vaccine rules that affect private-sector employees, health care workers and federal contractors by requiring employers with more than 100 workers to vaccinate or test for the virus weekly.
“We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” Biden said.
There is no doubt those rules are in “violation of our nation’s constitutional protections,” Lucas wrote to the caucus.
“The proposed OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) regulations that create an unacceptable choice between continued employment and receipt of a vaccine goes against every notion of privacy,” he added. “The ‘choice’ that these rules create is really no choice at all and amounts to little more than a federal vaccine mandate.”
Lucas said he is vaccinated against COVID-19 and has encouraged his members to do the same, though it’s unclear how many members of the South Carolina Legislature are vaccinated.
In his letter, Lucas said he’s been in contact with Republicans Gov. Henry McMaster and state Attorney General Alan Wilson to offer support of his office and the House to “combat these unacceptable mandates.”
“These efforts will likely involve the courts and an exercise of full executive authority at the state level. We must support those efforts as we seek to supplement them with our own,” he said.
Wilson has hinted as much.
“My staff has begun to review the law and its legal standing,” Wilson tweeted Thursday. “We will vigorously defend the rule of law and fight any overreach that may limit individuals personal freedoms.”
A day after McMaster took on Biden’s vaccine mandate, his spokesman Brian Symmes confirmed the governor is working with elected officials on how to respond.
“He’s having ongoing conversations to determine the best way to push back against what he believes are just absolutely ludicrous mandates coming from the federal government,” Symmes said.
In response, House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford said McMaster is playing politics.
“I guess the next House Republican Caucus meeting will be with Gov. McMaster at the gates of hell?” Rutherford, D-Richland, said in a statement provided to The State. “The bottom line here is that COVID will not go away until more people get vaccinated. In the last month — since we called for a special session to repeal the mask proviso — we’ve lost more than 1,000 lives. We’ve lost teachers and we’ve lost students. Our hospitals are being overwhelmed as our leaders do nothing.”
South Carolina’s COVID-19 caseload has continued to skyrocket after the emergence of the delta variant.
On Friday, the state almost 4,000 COVID-19 cases and 99 more deaths, bringing the state’s total death toll to more than 11,000.
Over in the Senate, Majority Leader Shane Massey said senators haven’t had conversations about doing holding similar meetings.
At least not yet.
“But I’ll be surprised if that doesn’t happen very soon,” Massey, R-Edgefield, said. “I know there’s going to be interest in that. I can’t imagine the president has the authority unilaterally to tell people they can’t work in the private sector unless they get a vaccine. I suspect that a court is gong to be weighing on that very soon.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 11:56 AM.
