Democrats in the State Legislature aim to impose even more restrictions despite Covid fatigue and declining case rates; critics argue the move will further divide the state politically without producing public health benefits.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the state of California was always in the extreme when it came to imposing Covid mandates and restrictions on its citizens. Now that the pandemic has ended and we are in an endemic phase, some California state leaders are still proposing more stringent Covid mandates rather than unwinding existing ones.
State Democrats, led by legislators like Senators Josh Newman (D) and Scott Wiener (D), have slated multiple bills for consideration, including: vaccine mandates for children and employees, removing parental consent requirements for the Covid vaccine for 12–17 year olds, and more.
If these bills were enacted, California would be an outlier and hold the strongest Covid restrictions in the country. The full slate of bills are as follows:
- SB 871 requires children aged 0 to 17 to get the COVID-19 vaccine in order to attend child care or school;
- SB 866 removes parental consent requirement on COVID-19 vaccine for ages 12–17;
- SB 1749 requires schools to continue Covid testing;
- SB 1018 requires online platforms to disclose their algorithms and share their data with researchers to fight Covid misinformation;
- SB 1464 requires law enforcement officials to enforce Covid policies;
- AB 1993 implements mandatory Covid vaccination for all employees and independent contractors;
- AB 1797 allows California school officials to easily search student vaccine records;
- AB 2098 penalizes doctors and surgeons who promote alternative Covid data and theories and subjects them to possible disciplinary action.
Reform California Chairman Carl DeMaio opposes the proposals and argues that Democrats seem to be stuck in a mandate mindset based on fear, not science.
“All of the data now shows conclusively that California failed the Covid governance test by imposing the most draconian lockdowns and mandates of any state in the nation - and we got all the costs but none of the benefits,” DeMaio said. DeMaio points to data showing California’s economic losses and impacts on children were greater than other states - but its performance on Covid was the same or worse.
“The draconian mandates didn’t work during the pandemic - and they certainly won’t work during the endemic phase,” DeMaio noted.
Worse, DeMaio says Democrats may be using Covid legislation with extreme mandates to continue to stoke divisions that motivate their base voters.
“Polling shows that President’s Biden poor performance on a wide-range of issues has Democrat base voters demoralized - but that their amped up fear of getting Covid and their blind faith in government Covid mandates could motivate them to go to the polls,” DeMaio said.
“California Democrat politicians are proposing these draconian bills in the hopes that they generate media attention and controversy that so they can get their base voters to show up to vote to save their careers,” DeMaio concluded.
DeMaio says California Democrats are no longer interested in promoting sound public health policy, but “stoking fear and dividing the public along ideological lines.” DeMaio urges common-sense voters to fight back against the division and the extreme bills being proposed by using the upcoming 2022 elections as a way to send a message.
“The 2022 primary and general elections are coming up, and we can send a loud and clear message to Sacramento that we’ve had enough by electing reform-minded candidates,” noted DeMaio.
Carl DeMaio and Reform California have announced a statewide campaign to recruit and support quality candidates to run in what he says are the top target seats in California.
“The only thing limiting us right now is lack of resources — so we’re urging all concerned Californians to join us in fighting for these target seats by contributing whatever they can today to the campaign,” DeMaio concluded.
Join the Campaign: Flip Target Seats in California
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