District 29 Rep. Ben Carpenter introduced House Bill 175, which makes it illegal for public and private employers in Alaska to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for their employees. The House of Representatives read the bill into record Wednesday that would protect the health rights of Alaskans.
The bill would also include protections for those who don’t receive the vaccine and wish to access state and local government facilities or receive state benefits. HB 175 also would give an individual the right for civil action if discriminated against for not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
Rep. Carpenter spoke to KSRM, “There’s significant concern that people have talked to me about not wanting to be forced to have a vaccination for the COVID-19 virus under the current conditions and current vaccines that are out. We’ve had significant conversations with their members of the legislature and the governor about mandating vaccinations and the governor’s been clear that he doesn’t want to. I can’t get that same clarity from the majority within the House. We wanted to ask the question on the floor just to see if the house is going to agree that we’re not going to, as a body, not going to force vaccinations on people and they won’t even talk about it. The bill has introduced to put into law that businesses, state agencies, schools, University of Alaska, municipalities, boroughs, they don’t have right to require individuals to vaccinate for a COVID-19 pandemic with the current vaccines that are on the market. That’s basically what this does.”
Carpenter adds, “I think there’s one thing that’s probably missing from this bill that I would entertain an amendment for is also making very clear that the ability to travel also would not be constrained by vaccination requirements. I’m keenly aware that the only way in and out of Juneau quickly is by aircraft and if an airline is authorized to require vaccination in order to fly, that makes it awful hard for me to get home quickly.”
House Bill 175 was referred to the Community & Regional Affairs and the Labor & Commerce committees.