By Thomas P. Caldwell, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — The House Education Committee took five hours of public testimony to heart and passed an amendment to House Bill 255 that would prohibit businesses and other entities from requiring that workers be vaccinated.
Dissenting committee members pointed out that the amendment as written not only dictates how businesses handle concerns about public safety but also would prohibit churches and other private organizations from imposing vaccine requirements if they wish.
House Speaker Sherman Packard (R-Londonderry) issued a statement after the 11-8 vote, saying, “Today’s vote relative to HB255 — coinciding with President Biden’s visit — sent a message loud and clear: Granite Staters will not be ruled by an unconstitutional mandate. When it comes to standing up for what’s right, New Hampshire has always led the way. We will continue to do that — together.”
He continued, “The Education Committee passed HB255, in the name of medical freedom. Employers are struggling to fill vacancies, gas and food prices are rising, and chaos reins at the border — the President has shown his ineptitude to lead. He has instead chosen to rule by mandates. That is not the New Hampshire way — and today’s small victory proved that.”
Rep. Barbara Shaw of Manchester was the only Democrat who voted yes on the amendment. It will go to the full House in January.
The Deputy Ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. David Luneau of Hopkinton, had a different perspective on the decision. “In a last-ditch attempt to deny science and promote conspiracy theories, House Republicans disrespected the legislative process today by amending an unrelated education bill with language undermining public health and safety during a pandemic.”
Prior to the vote, he had objected to the Republican leadership’s decision to permanently remove the one Republican member who may have opposed the amendment.
“This political stunt should be a concern to everyone,” he said in his later statement. “The House Speaker’s decision to gerrymander the proceeding is a disgrace.”
Luneau continued, “Today, we heard extreme testimony from both the public and our colleagues repeating disinformation on the COVID vaccine. Let’s be clear, the COVID vaccine is safe and effective. It is the right of companies, schools, and organizations to protect their patrons and employees from a virus that has taken the lives of over 750,000 Americans. Denying private businesses and organizations this right is not the New Hampshire way.”
In introducing the amendment, Chair Rick Ladd (R-Haverhill) said, “This amendment, 2239H, provides that no New Hampshire entity shall compel the receipt of any COVID vaccine by any individual who objects to such vaccination for any reason — a person’s conscience, religious belief, or medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19.”
He said HB 255 was originally established to limit liability for higher education, but “that’s no longer needed. The amendment, however, is submitted for the purpose of rejecting the federal directive establishing a mandatory vaccine work requirement.”
Ladd said the mandate is putting new burdens on employers “when they can least afford an infringement on personal rights and making life hard for the unvaccinated who want to work in an economy which is already seeing too few workers.”
He said the right of conscience is at the core of New Hampshire’s bill of rights, and the state’s Supreme Court has ruled that “the rights of conscience can’t be surrendered to government, nor could society or government have any plan to assume to take them away or interfere with them.”
He also cited a 1937 court ruling that “the rights of conscience and religion are unalienable rights that should not be trampled upon by a single stroke of any administrator’s pen.”
Citizens attending the meeting overwhelmingly agreed, with fewer than a dozen people speaking against the amendment.
Among those opposed to the amendment was David Juvet, senior vice-president of Public Policy with the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire. He said that, while some members of his organization agree with the argument against mandates, the majority are more concerned about state overreach in forbidding businesses from doing what they want to do.
“I would ask all of you to remember that there are a lot of employers in the state who are in a very difficult position right now, and it will be even more difficult if this proposal passes the House and the Senate and is signed into law. Right now the law of the land is that employers of 100 employees or more, or those who are healthcare providers who receive Medicaid and Medicare dollars, or those who have federal contracts are under a mandate to have their employees vaccinated. Or, if they opt out, to have them tested once a week to show that they are COVID-free. They don’t have the ability to just ignore that federal mandate,” he said.
“If this proposal passes and becomes law, I’m hoping each of you will go to the employers in your districts who are under federal mandate and ask them, are you intending to comply with federal law, or are you intending to comply with the state law, because you won’t be able to do both; and then ask them if that’s creating a difficult position for them to be in.”
The majority of speakers spoke of lost jobs and family income because of the mandates. Several had personally lost their jobs for refusing the vaccine.
Others objected on the grounds of government overreach, saying even if they personally chose to get vaccinated, they would support the rights of those who choose not to get the vaccine.
Two of the speakers brought up the Nuremberg Code’s first precept, developed in the aftermath of the Nazi’s experiments on humans: “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.”
Several speakers argued that the efficacy of the vaccine is still unresolved and that scientists with different opinions are suppressed. With some of the evidence in dispute, they argued that there can be no informed consent.
Nicole Souza of Amherst gave a passionate plea: “Show the world that liberty cannot be destroyed under the guise of safety, that America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. … People that stand up for human rights and against tyrants are villains in their presence but they are heroes in our history. … Stand up and fight … so our children do not have to lay down their lives.”
Many of the speakers were healthcare workers who have come to mistrust the vaccine, with some describing terrible side effects of the inoculations, such as myocarditis. A physical therapist from Alton described seeing a 20-year-old with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that has become more common since the vaccines came out. “He has to live with this the rest of his life,” she said.
Howard Chase, a registered nurse, said autopsies of people who have died after being vaccinated are not allowed in the United States “because they don’t want us to know what is happening,” but a Canadian study has found that the vaccine goes to every organ in the body, and has caused myocarditis and brain fog, and some women of childbearing age become infertile. “But does this last forever? We don’t know. But do you want to put this protein spike in a six-year-old child? You shouldn’t be putting this protein spike in anybody who is of childbearing age.”
The committee repeatedly attempted to keep the testimony about the amendment itself and not on the efficacy or potential dangers of the vaccine, but speakers kept returning to those issues, asking how can they be separated. When they did speak specifically to the amendment, it was on the choice a mandate produces: one’s health or one’s livelihood.
A few spoke of the other side: the people who would be forced to quit their jobs out of concern for their health if there is no vaccine mandate.
T.P. Caldwell is a writer, editor, photographer, and videographer who formed and serves as project manager of the Liberty Independent Media Project. Contact him at liberty18@me.com.
