Conservatives Lead Fight to Defund Vaccine Mandate over Government Funding Bill
House and Senate conservatives lead the way to defund President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate through a government spending bill.
Government funding will likely lapse December 3, and conservatives hopes to use the looming government shutdown to defund Biden’s attempt to force coronavirus vaccines on the American people.
In the Senate, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is leading conservatives who have insisted on barring funds for the Biden vaccine mandates as a condition to continue funding the government. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wants to pass a continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the government through January.
Lee’s group of conservatives will come at loggerheads with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has promised that there will be no government shutdown nor a default on the debt. The debt ceiling fight will arise later in December.
During a Senate Republican lunch Wednesday, Lee said that defunding the vaccine through the government spending authorization is the best way to defund the vaccine mandate.
Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), has led a movement with 50 Senate Republicans to eliminate the Biden vaccine mandate through a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution. The Senate will likely vote next week on the CRA resolution.
Braun argued that his method is the easier way to eliminate the mandate.
“Most everybody agrees with me,” Braun said.
Nevertheless, many Senate conservatives have seemed to agree with Lee’s strategy, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Roger Marshall (R-KS).
“It’s up to Sen. Schumer. If he’ll stop any type of funding for the vaccine mandate, then I think this goes forward. But if he doesn’t. … The folks back home want to know how hard we’re fighting for them,” Marshall said in favor of Lee’s strategy.
Cruz and Marshall have said that they would accept an amendment vote on vaccine mandates if McConnell can get a vote from Schumer.
The two senators hope get Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on board, as he has posed similar measures in September.
House conservatives have led a similar movement in Congress’s lower chamber.
The House Freedom Caucus issued a statement Wednesday calling on McConnell to “deny timely passage of the CR unless it prohibits —in all respects — for the vaccine mandates.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said that the House will not vote on Wendesday, meaning that a short-term shutdown is increasingly likely.
“It’s incomprehensible to me that we can’t pass a simple CR,” Hoyer said.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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