SC Gov. McMaster says National Guard won’t punish those refusing COVID vaccine mandate
Challenging a mandate from the federal government, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster said Monday that members of the state’s National Guard will not be punished for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
McMaster announced the decision in a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in response to a mandate that personnel in the U.S. armed forces, including the National Guard, would be required to get vaccinated against the virus.
The governor told Austin he would “withhold court-martial convening authority for the Adjutant General and any subordinate commanders in connection with a soldier’s failure to comply with the Department’s vaccine mandates,” the letter said. That eliminates the most serious possibility of punishment, trial before a military court, for any guardsman who refuses to get the vaccine.
“By taking such action — which the (Defense) Department has recognized as an example of proper command involvement in military justice matters — I intend to make clear that the Biden Administration will be solely responsible for any consequences brought to bear on a member of the South Carolina National Guard based on their vaccination status,” the governor writes.
Unlike active-duty members of the U.S. Army or Air Force, National Guard units are under the command of state governors unless called up for federal service by the president.
The administration of President Joe Biden had previously mandated that all armed forces service members receive the COVID-19 vaccine, including members of the National Guard. The federal military branches have already begun discharging soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who refuse the order.
The Department of Defense recently rejected a request from several governors to exempt their states’ Guard units from the requirement, the New York Times reported, potentially setting up a legal challenge to whether state or federal authorities’ directives take precedence in the Guard.
In his Feb. 17 letter, McMaster disputes the Defense Department’s jurisdiction over South Carolina’s Guard units and called on the federal government to drop the mandate for Guard members.
“The vaccine mandates ... are at odds with law and logic, both because they exceed the federal government’s constitutional and statutory authority and because they fail to account for the current circumstances related to COVID-19,” McMaster writes. “It is axiomatic that the South Carolina National Guard remains under my command and control unless and until one or more units are federalized.”
McMaster also says that “compelling our men and women in uniform to choose between serving their State and Nation or setting aside their objections to COVID-19 vaccines is negatively impacting our ability to recruit and retain members of the South Carolina National Guard.”
But the federal government has indicated it plans to move forward with vaccine requirements for service members at all levels.
“Covid-19 takes our service members out of the fight, temporarily or permanently, and jeopardizes our ability to meet mission requirements,” Austin wrote earlier this month to seven Republican governors who asked for guardsmen to be exempted. “Failure by a member to do so will lead to a prohibition on participation in drills, training, and other duty conducted under Title 32 and will jeopardize the member’s status in the National Guard.”
McMaster has made known his opposition to vaccine mandates before. The governor had previously challenged a mandate from the Biden administration that private employers require their workers receive COVID-19 vaccines, a move that was ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court. McMaster has also acted to block local governments and school districts in South Carolina from imposing their own COVID-19 protocols that might be stricter than statewide standards.
In his State of the State address at the State House last month, McMaster boasted that South Carolina “never closed” in the face of the pandemic.
This story was originally published February 21, 2022 at 2:17 PM.
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