Today's Headline

 

Headline in today’s Newspaper:

“Special Session on Mandates Begins Today”

        This should scare the hell out of every sentient, literate, Floridian (but it won’t). It won't scare most people simply because most people don't understand, or won't try to comprehend, the significance of state attempts to roll back, or simply ignore, federal mandates. Among other things, one of the goals of this special session called by, of course, Republican presidential hopeful, and current Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, is an attempt to accomplish several of the following legislative boondoggles.

        The first is an attempt to take away the rights of employers and businesses to require vaccination of employees to protect the health and safety of their staff and/or clientele. The second would prevent government employers from requiring workers to be vaccinated against COVID. The third, which is being hidden under the name “Reinforcing parents Bill of Rights” would prevent schools protecting student and staff with mask mandates. The fourth would prohibit the state surgeon general from forcing people to be vaccinated. However, since the state surgeon general is a pawn of the current governor that's of little concern.

        As if those weren’t bad enough, the last and most significant, and certainly most dire in its implications, is a move towards withdrawing from federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration oversight. This last should scare everybody. Here's the further description of this piece of work: “The lengthy process to move away from OSHA oversight is a desire of both the Florida House Speaker and the Senate President" (both, of course, Republicans). What this would do would be to set the precedent of the state overriding national interests and controls and the protection of the people of the state. One example might be removing safety requirements for pesticides used by agricultural workers. Another might be easing requirements for appropriate safety equipment to be provided by an employer. In other words, it could push the state’s work force back to the “bad old days” of the robber barons when employers treated employees like chattel instead of workers that were valued. Of course, since most state representatives and Senators are business owners and none of them truly “work” for a living, they don't care.

        In 1828 South Carolina in a hastily called state legislative session attempted to pass a bill nullifying the tariff of 1828 which they called the “Tariff of Abominations”. Andrew Jackson responded by threatening the use of federal troops to enforce tariff collection while clandestinely urging supporters in Congress to pass a greatly reduced tariff bill. What this accomplished was the end of a state's attempt to nullify, or void, a federal law, but it also established the precedent that a state cannot nullify a federal law. The last time I looked, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created by federal law. If the state of Florida were to nullify the extent or level of control of OSHA within the state, why not just also nullify the Food and Drug administration's requirement that drugs be “safe and effective?” Why not nullify provisions of the department of agriculture's meat inspection act? We've already seen states attempt to bypass federal voting rights laws and those cases are currently in court. Ron DeSantis seems so desperate to look like a leader that he is treading on ground and espousing “slippery slope” principles already declared invalid almost 200 years ago. We deserve much better.