"They're going to need to get 218 House members to support this," Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) told American Family Radio on Thursday. "They also have to get signatures to bring it to the floor on a discharge petition because we know that [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi is not going to choose to bring it to the floor."
The resolution passed the Senate by a bipartisan vote of 52 to 48. But while the odds of the resolution going anywhere in the House are slim, Blackburn said it's a fight worth having.
"The American people are going to have to learn to live with COVID because this is going to be with us and we can't stop living our lives," said Blackburn (pictured above).
"We cannot shut and lockdown our churches and our schools and our places of work. It's just like with the flu. After the Spanish flu, a century ago, they didn't lock the country down – they figured out how to work with this."
Twila Brase, a registered nurse and president/co-founder of Citizens' Council for Health Freedom, contends House members should vote in favor of the resolution.
"The American public is very unhappy with this mandate," Brase tells American Family News. "They believe it's completely wrong; they believe that they should have choices.
"So, Republicans and Democrats in the House should stand up – stand up for the rights of the people [and] stand up for their constitutional rights and their patient rights and their human rights to say no to a medical procedure that they totally disagree with."
Senator Blackburn has a related bill called the Keeping Our COVID-19 Heroes Employed Act, which would:
- Protect essential workers from being fired due to COVID vaccination requirements.
- Define "essential workers" to mean any individual the relevant state, tribe, or territory (1) deemed essential during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic or (2) otherwise exempted from the restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Nullify the Biden Administration's Executive Order 14043 Requiring Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccination for Federal Employees if those employees qualify as essential workers.
- Nullify the Biden administration's Executive Order 14042 Ensuring Adequate COVID Safety Protocols for Federal Contractors if those contractors qualify as essential workers.
- Preempt the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from issuing regulations requiring employees to vaccinate if those employees qualify as essential workers.
"We have New York firefighters, the United Airlines flight attendants, the Chicago police force, the National Sheriffs' Association, and dozens of bipartisan organizations that have stepped forward and supported this," said the GOP lawmaker. "There may be a vehicle moving that would help us to push this forward because those who were essential workers during COVID-19 who showed up, who did their job – they found out how to handle COVID."
The Biden administration says this mandate – and others like it involving federal workers and contractors – is necessary to combat the spread of COVID-19.
"We know it works," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday about the mandates. "That's why the president and the administration will continue pressing forward."
Some people who have been speaking out against the mandates are individuals who chose to get the COVID shots. For them, it's not about the shot, jab, or vaccine, but an issue of freedom.
