While the Alabama Legislature is deliberating over its options to respond to the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) acknowledged his and his Republican colleagues’ options were limited.
During an interview with Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show,” Brooks called the Biden mandate a “deprivation of freedom and liberty” but warned their efforts would come up short given that Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
“Unfortunately, we’re very limited because elections have consequences,” Brooks said. “The very people who are forcing this down the throats of the American population are the people who are in control of the House, the Senate, and the White House. And that’s typically where you would try to go to get relief from a federal government mandate. So on my end, along with a whole bunch of other congressmen and senators — we’re sending all sorts of letters to the Biden administration saying, ‘Please don’t do this. You haven’t thought this all the way through. There are going to be adverse effects on the national defense. There are going to be adverse effects on the national economy.’”
“It’s a deprivation of freedom and liberty on behalf of American citizens,” he continued. “They should have their own decision on whether to take the vaccine or not, take the vaccine given the risk associated with each individual person’s circumstances, and they often differ. But we’re asking the very people who are mandating. So the letters, of course, aren’t getting much positive reaction from the Biden administration. Similarly, we are filing bill after bill after bill in the House and/or Senate. I’m a co-sponsor of a lot of them. But they’re not going to go anywhere because Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. Chuck Schumer controls the flow of legislation in the Senate. And they’re not going to let those things come up for a vote.”
Brooks added, “We can push, but unfortunately, the American people, for whatever reason, empowered the very folks who want to dictate our own health care to us and deprive us of the normal doctor-patient relationship where the patient can make the decision after consultation with their physicians. So what does that leave? You can go to court, and you can try to litigate, or you can have some type of significant walkout against a targeted industry, making clear the dramatic adverse economic effect that this is going to have on that industry and America should this play out through the end game. I wish there were better options out there.”
Brooks also said he was “thankful” for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s effort but added that much of the litigation brought by the states to the arena of the federal courts is dependent on who the federal judge is presiding over the case.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
