Vaccine Mandates Need to Stop

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMUCKER. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Keller for his leadership on this issue. My wonderful colleague from Pennsylvania introduced the Congressional Review Act, and I rise today in strong support of this act, which would block President Biden's misguided and, frankly, I think unconstitutional mandate. I thank him for his efforts and I am very, very happy to be able to support that.

Madam Speaker, I will say first, that I think the U.S. and what we have accomplished in developing a vaccine through Operation Warp Speed was a remarkable achievement of science and of a system in our country that develops the best medical system and the best drugs from across the world. And to be able to do that in the amount of time that it was done and to manufacture those drugs in a large scale is nothing short of amazing.

Personally, for myself, my family, we have discussed this with our doctor. We got the vaccine early on when it became available. And I have encouraged Pennsylvanians to speak with their own doctors and make their own decisions about the direction they want to take. And many Pennsylvanians have, and I think Mr. Keller knows this as well.

We now are at over 70 percent of our Commonwealth vaccinated, which begs the question for me: What ever happened to herd immunity? What ever happened?

Every one of us were in the room early on during this vaccine when we heard from Dr. Fauci and heard from other experts who talked about herd immunity. And they were talking about herd immunity being achieved when about 70 percent--or even less after we learned that COVID was not as fatal as was originally feared. At that point, we could do away with government mandates--many that were unnecessary in the first place, by the way--but we could reopen the economy and could control COVID; 70 percent. We are there, but nobody is talking about it anymore. CDC doesn't talk about it. This administration doesn't talk about it. What happened?

Madam Speaker, so I agree, there has got to be something else going on. And other speakers tonight have talked about it. There has got to be something more, and I fear it is control. It is control that people want.

I think we should trust the science. I think you should listen to your medical professionals. Certainly, it shouldn't be government topdown mandates.

I hear from employers every day who are worried that this mandate will further harm their ability to hire and retrain staff. They are already having a lot of problems due to some of the policies of this administration, but this will make it a lot worse. And I also hear from employees every day that are worried that this mandate may threaten their jobs and may threaten their livelihoods.

I have been heartened that over half of States have sued the administration to reverse this mandate, and I have also joined with my Republican colleagues from Pennsylvania to call on our attorney general in our State to join that litigation.

Madam Speaker, I stand ready to oppose this mandate; do everything that I can to block this and any vaccine mandates that this White House puts forth.

Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Keller for his leadership.

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