Jackson: Fighting back against federal government illegal vaccine mandate

Last month, Joe Biden announced his most brazen attempt yet to shred our freedoms with his authoritarian COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Under his proposal, federal employees and individuals who work at a business with more than 100 employees must get vaccinated or they will be fired from their job. This would apply to over two-thirds of the American workforce. Obviously, I am vehemently opposed to this unconstitutional overreach. The bottom line is this: your health decisions are between you and your doctor, not between you and Joe Biden.

I got the COVID-19 vaccine and I continue to encourage my constituents to speak with their doctor about whether the vaccine is right for them. As a physician, I would never advise a patient to trust politicians in Washington over advice from a doctor who knows them and their medical history. Though I am encouraged by Governor Abbott’s executive order cracking down on vaccine mandates, I know that this battle is far from over with Biden in the White House. Rest assured, I have and will continue to fight back on his unconstitutional vaccine mandate every step of the way.

I have already signed onto legislation and letters to the Biden Administration challenging this historic overreach. I am also proud to share that I have introduced my own legislation – the Forbidding Repressive Executive Efforts and Denouncing Overreaching Mandates (FREEDOM) Act. The FREEDOM Act opposes vaccine mandates and requires all departments and agencies within the Biden Administration to issue a report on the number of employees who will leave due to his mandate, and the resulting time and cost incurred to find and train their replacements.

This month, we received devastating job report numbers. The economy is in shambles, and Biden’s only proposal is to fire hardworking people who refuse to listen to him. I believe that we will be even worse off because of vaccine mandates, economically and otherwise. My legislation will force the Biden Administration to show the American people how detrimental the vaccine mandate is to the economy and the cost to taxpayers.

One point not being discussed enough is the fact that these are not just low-skilled jobs that will go unfilled. I have heard from constituents who work at Pantex in Amarillo who would rather lose their job than be forced to get the vaccine. Pantex is where all U.S. nuclear weapons are assembled and disassembled. We are talking about classified, high-skilled roles that cannot be filled overnight. In addition, I have heard from numerous nurses who refuse to be forced into getting the vaccine. We cannot afford to lose our nursing staff during a pandemic. Many employees around the country are in similar situations, and our national security and public health will suffer as a result. The cure cannot be worse than the disease.

As most Texans can agree, Biden’s unconstitutional vaccine mandate is not about science; it is about control. If we needed any more evidence of that, look no further than our southern border. COVID-positive and unvaccinated illegals are flooding into our country and Biden does not seem to care, in fact, he is encouraging them. He has no problem releasing them into our communities, but he wants to fire American citizens from their job for not following his authoritarian orders. He is America Last.

Biden’s crises have quickly mounted: a border crisis that is out of control, a failing economy, gas prices are up 42 percent, a humiliating Afghanistan withdrawal that resulted in the death of 13 servicemembers, firing hardworking Americans for not putting their trust in the federal government, and the list goes on. In each case, he has proven that he is not up for the task. To put it simply, Joe Biden is the worst president of my lifetime, and I am not going to sit quietly while he pushes a liberal takeover of America.

Ronny Jackson is the U.S. Representative from District 13 in Texas.