(LifeSiteNews) — Legislators in Wyoming will vote on vaccine mandate and passports during a special session next week.
The legislators could debate two bills from October 26 to October 28 that aim to protect citizens from being coerced into getting vaccinated or barring them from participating in the economy. A third bill would fine or jail any government employee who attempted to enforce federal vaccine mandates.
“One bill being drafted would ban vaccine passports,” the Associated Press reported. “Another would impose a $500,000 fine for firing, demoting, promoting, compensating or refusing to hire employees based on vaccination status.”
The third piece of legislation “would provide for fines and jail for any public servant who tried to enforce federal vaccine mandates.”
The legislation is not currently available on the legislature’s website.
A local Wyoming news site said the anti-discrimination law would punish businesses with “civil penalties of a $500,000 penalty payable to each victim. There would also be criminal penalties: a misdemeanor with jail time of up to six months, a fine of up to $750, or both.”
Republican state representative Chuck Gray has been working on his vaccine passport ban legislation since the summer. Gov. Mark Gordon’s executive order only prohibits government agencies from implementing a vaccine passport system.
This does not go far enough for Gray. “The Governor’s Executive Order needs to be strengthened and a ban on vaccine passports need to be placed in state and federal statute,” Gray said in June.
He is looking forward to the special session.
“This is a huge, historic moment for our state!” Gray wrote on his campaign Facebook page. “It is only the second time the legislature has called itself into special session in Wyoming history.”
Establishment Republicans may team up with Democrats to push back on the legislative efforts, however.
“Two-thirds of each chamber would need to approve rules for the session to be proposed by legislative leadership,” the AP reported. “The leaders plan to seek to adjournment if legislators don’t approve their rules, according to a memo from Senate President Dan Dockstader, R-Afton, and House Speaker Eric Barlow, R-Gillette.”
Moderate Republicans have stymied efforts by conservative GOP politicians to protect citizens from private and public vaccine mandates.
Idaho’s lieutenant governor expanded the governor’s executive order to ensure that K-12 schools and universities could not require a vaccine passport or a negative test result to enter buildings.
The state’s Republican governor, Brad Little, wanted to allow government entities to require testing in order to access services.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a moderate Republican, said he supports the right of businesses to fire employees who choose not to get jabbed.
“So, I am a defender of the employer’s right to provide a healthy workplace,” Hutchinson said during a Sunday interview on NBC. “You would have just as many workers say, ‘I don’t want to work there because it’s not a healthy workplace, because not everybody’s going to be vaccinated.’”
“[Employers] should have the prerogative to make those decisions, and I support that.”