DeSantis signs four bills

Governor Ron DeSantis signed — four bills

Signed at the end of the Legislation session this month

• HB 1-B is one of these bills. Among other actions, HB 1-B prohibits government entities from imposing vaccine mandates on employees, vaccine mandates, and it prevents vaccine mandates for students. The bill also prevents public schools from forcing students to wear face masks, and it requires employers to give their employees certain COVID-19 vaccine exemptions. This bill could have been far stronger — not only could the list of exemptions have been larger, but the bill’s provisions expire on June 1, 2023 — but it still helps push back against the current COVID tyranny in Florida.

• HB 3-B enacts additional protections to Floridians’ medical and religious information, ensuring personal privacy when the government investigates an employer’s refusal to provide exemptions to forced vaccinations.

• HB 5-B allows Florida to begin the process of withdrawing the state from the federal government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Such an action is not perfect — Florida would create its own “state plan” pursuant to federal law, and the federal government would need to approve this plan — but it is a significant step toward asserting state, not federal, control over workplace matters.

• HB 7-B enacts a significant protection against forced vaccinations. Under Florida law, the chief public health officer — currently the surgeon general — had full power to require individuals to be vaccinated against their will during a “public health emergency.” Although Governor DeSantis and Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo both strongly oppose forced vaccines, nothing was preventing a future governor or surgeon general from mandating vaccinations. HB 7-B fixes this dangerous loophole. We had previously supported legislation in the 2022 regular session to accomplish this, but the just-enacted bill makes this unnecessary.