Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) unveiled a bill on Friday that would reinstate troops booted from the military for refusing the coronavirus vaccine and bar the military from punishing those who object in the future.
The bill comes after Republicans successfully repealed the coronavirus vaccine mandate for service members, thousands of whom were discharged for refusing the shots. The repeal, tucked into Congress’s annual defense bill last year, faced opposition from the Pentagon and White House.
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“Thanks to the hard work of many of my Republican colleagues, the Biden administration’s disastrous COVID-19 vaccine mandate was finally ended. But there is more work to be done. Republicans must fight to permanently end these mandates and make whole all the service members harmed by President Biden’s senseless policies,” Roy said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “I’ve introduced the Service Restoration Act to do just that.”
Roy’s legislation would reinstate troops at their former pay grade and rank and expunge from their record any disciplinary action stemming from their refusal. It would bar “adverse actions” based on a soldier’s vaccination status, such as demotion, involuntary separation, face mask requirements, or travel restrictions.
The bill, reported by Breitbart, targets the discretion Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin gave commanders to “consider, as appropriate, the individual immunization status of personnel in making deployment, assignment, and other operational decisions.” Under Roy’s legislation, members of the military would have a clean slate as it relates to vaccine protocol, and those who chose not to return would be marked as having honorable discharges.
Conservatives praised last year’s repeal of the mandate but argue it did not go far enough. Former Vice President Mike Pence called on Austin last week to reinstate and provide back pay for members who were expelled, which the Pentagon said it would not consider.
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“I think now that Secretary Austin has implemented what Congress passed into law, lifting the vaccine mandate on members of our armed forces, now I’m calling on the Biden administration and the Pentagon to reinstate every man and woman that was discharged from our armed forces because they refused to take the vaccine and give them 100% back pay for the time after they were discharged,” Pence said.
More than 8,400 service members were expelled from the military for refusing the vaccine, with many religious and medical exemption approvals still pending when the mandate was rescinded.
David Sivak contributed to this report.
