House Democrats approve vaccine bill
The Connecticut House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a bill that doubles down on a 2021 law requiring students to be vaccinated to enroll in public school.
The bill would also give the state more leeway to recommend vaccines, even if CDC guidance no longer does.
It now moves to the Senate after an 89-60 vote that saw 12 Democrats side with Republicans to oppose it.
“We’re not forcing anybody to do anything,” Rep Matt Ritter (D-Speaker) said to reporters prior to Tuesday’s debate. “We’re not forcing anybody to put anything in their body. But we are saying if you’re going to go to our public school system and you’re going to be with our kids who might have pre-existing conditions, which prevent them from getting vaccinated, then you have to be vaccinated.”
The bill would stipulate that the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not apply to school immunization requirements.
The legislature in 2021 voted to eliminate the state’s religious exemption for school vaccine requirements, a law that is now being challenged in court.
Republicans said Democrats are concerned the legal challenge could prevail, so they’re trying to change the law retroactively.
“The only reason this is happening today is that the state of Connecticut is afraid they’re going to lose that litigation case that’s currently in the court system, so they’re preeminently moving the goalposts,” Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria (R-Seymour) said.
Ritter said he’s confident the state will win the case, but admitted William Tong (D-Connecticut) has expressed concerns.
Ritter said one possible outcome is that because the 2021 law exempted children already in school, a judge may overturn it on the grounds that all children should be subject to the change equally.
Ritter said Democrats want to reaffirm their stance on this bill to avoid having to impose vaccine requirements on the students who were grandfathered.
“The reaction to that would be to come in here in say, ‘alright, if you didn’t like the grandfathering, we will just remove every single person,’” he said.
The bill also changes what the state Department of Public Health (DPH) must consider when setting vaccine policies.
DPH is currently required to rely on CDC guidance, but this bill would also allow it to turn to recommendations from various medical associations.
Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey (R-Fairfield) said the change is meant to allow the state to ensure people can get access to vaccines, even if the CDC no longer recommends it.
“We’re trying to be proactive in the face of uncertainty,” she said. “In fact, I would prefer we weren’t doing this bill, and I would prefer we could rely on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.”
The law would require state-regulated insurance plans to continue to cover vaccines. Roughly two-thirds of people get insurance through an employer, meaning those plans are not regulated by the state, but McCarthy Vahey was hopeful those providers would follow suit.
She also said that nothing in the bill changes the process for imposing new mandates, meaning any proposals would still need to come before the legislature’s Regulatory Review Committee.
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