By Kim Chandler, Associated Press
Alabama argued in a lawsuit contesting federal vaccine requirements that many university and state agency employees would quit their jobs if they had to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Alabama has partnered with a coalition of other states in a lawsuit filed late Friday challenging the vaccine mandate for federal contractors. The lawsuit is part of a Republican-led effort to defy federal requirements. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall this week also urged corporations, universities, and state agencies to review employee requests for medical and religious exemptions.
“From the moment the White House tried to force this vaccine on Americans, I have said that Alabama is strongly against it and that the way to stop it is to go to court,” said Kay Ivey, governor of Alabama, in a statement this weekend.
Alabama has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country with only 44.7% of the population fully vaccinated, compared to a national average of 58%. When announcing the rules in September, President Joe Biden said the unvaccinated would hamper the nation’s recovery.
“Without vaccination regulations, we face endless months of chaos in our hospitals, other negative economic effects, and anxiety in our schools. With them we will accelerate our way out of the pandemic, “wrote the White House on a page about the conditions.
In the lawsuit filed late Friday, Alabama alleged that many employees at the university and the Alabama Department of Public Health “would likely quit their jobs instead of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of continued employment.”
Even when sued by the state, the Auburn University and University of Alabama campuses have said that staff must be vaccinated by Nov. 8 as the campuses are all state contractors.
Vaccine mandates have been the subject of litigation. The Supreme Court has rejected an emergency petition from health workers in Maine to block a vaccine mandate that went into effect Friday.
Many of Alabama’s public universities and some state agencies have received notice that they are subject to federal vaccination mandates, according to the Attorney General’s office.
Marshall issued a recommendation this week instructing Alabama-based employers, including public university employers, to generously interpret all requests for medical and religious vaccination exemptions “in favor of the worker.”
When an employee requests a religious exemption, Marshall said, government agencies “should not investigate the validity of an employee’s religious beliefs, including the motives or reasons for holding the belief.” This deviates from the federal guidelines, in which federal employees are asked to participate in an interactive process and to bring documents with them that prove the application for an exception.
Twelve vaccination bills were tabled for redistribution in the ongoing special session, but key lawmakers said they did not expect to discuss the proposals before the regular winter session.
House spokesman Mac McCutcheon said Republicans wanted to fight the mandate but suggested it would be counterproductive to pass laws that might not affect federal law. The primacy clause of the U.S. Constitution is clear that federal law overrides any conflicting state laws.
“The last thing we want to do is a knee-jerk reaction to something that sounds good politically, but essentially what it does. You didn’t do the people justice, ”said McCutcheon.
Federal contract companies could find themselves in an awkward position when torn between conflicting state and federal mandates. Some current mandates – such as a hospital requiring doctors to give doctors annual flu shots – could be affected by the proposed bills.
Republican Senator Arthur Orr of Decatur said there would be ongoing discussions about how laws could be put in place to aid the state litigation. Orr said he was hearing more and more stories of people losing their jobs because they weren’t vaccinated.
“It was tragic,” said Orr.
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