Republicans step up pressure on Biden to roll back federal pandemic mandates

Congressional Republicans have ramped up calls on the Biden administration to accept that COVID-19 will remain a part of regular life from now on and that existing mask mandates, especially in schools, should be discarded. Democrats have only recently proven amenable to pulling back those mandates.

“For two years now, the Democratic Party has allowed some of the most powerful special interests in our country to profoundly, profoundly disrupt children’s lives,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday. “That’s simply not acceptable. American families deserve normalcy.”

Republicans at the federal level are introducing a flurry of resolutions to roll back federal masking recommendations and a mandate for public transportation amid a growing number of Democratic governors curtailing mask mandates in some capacity. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota led several fellow Republicans in filing a resolution earlier this week that would give Congress the power to nullify a universal masking requirement applying to all staff, volunteers, and children at least 2 years old who take part in the Head Start program, a federal program for preschool children from low-income families.

“You shouldn’t have 2-year-old toddlers being required to wear masks, not only when they’re inside but when they’re outside on the playground,” Thune said on Tuesday. “It should be up to parents and guardians whether or not these little toddlers have to wear masks. It shouldn’t be up to the Biden mask police.”

Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas, has also filed a congressional resolution to end the COVID-19 national state of emergency, powered by a law known as the National Emergencies Act, which grants the president expanded authority to deal with crises other than natural disasters and war. Meanwhile, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, an outspoken opponent of any kind of COVID-19 mask and vaccine mandate, is pushing his bill to curtail federal mask mandates on public transportation systems and planes.

“It’s a joke, it’s theater, and there’s no reason to be wearing them on the planes,” Paul said on Newsmax Wednesday. “We are just punishing ourselves. And I, for one, I’m tired of paying the airlines to be treated like crap when I get on the plane.”

Republicans are also targeting vaccine mandates in schools, which are rare. Only California, Louisiana, Illinois, and New York have instituted school vaccine mandates, though the New York and Illinois mandates do not apply to K-12 schools, just institutions of higher learning. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has taken aim at mandatory COVID-19 vaccines for in-person school attendance, filing an amendment to the stopgap government funding bill that would withhold federal funding for schools and childcare centers that have mandates “related to enrollment, in-person attendance, and participation in school-sponsored activities.”

The federal battle follows major changes at the state level. State legislatures have become battlegrounds for mask mandates in public places and schools. New York state Republicans, for example, are building pressure on Gov. Kathy Hochul to rescind the state masking requirements for schools. While Hochul has lifted the statewide indoor mask mandate, which required restaurants, offices, and other businesses to require face coverings when it was not possible to know if everyone was vaccinated, she maintained the mandate in schools.

“The continuation of an irrational and unscientific mask mandate for school children, without a definitive end in sight, continues to define New York as a state under the control of extreme executive order, without legislative checks and balances, and ignoring the dire need for local decision-making,” Republican state Sen. Tom O’Mara said earlier this week.

In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed into law on Wednesday a measure that allows parents to “elect for [their] child to not wear a mask while on school property,” regardless of masking guidelines set down by local school districts. Under normal rules, the law banning mandates would not go into effect until July 1, but the Legislature approved an amendment to the bill that put the new law into effect immediately.

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Republicans have been calling for a wind-down of the state of emergency for weeks, though they have been fighting against mandates for much longer. The frenzy of blue states lifting their masking requirements puts them on the same page as Republicans, who have avoided mandates and restrictions for months, even before the omicron wave hit and then receded.

The Biden administration has not bent to pressure to loosen mask guidelines. Rather, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on Wednesday that the agency will continue to monitor hospitalization rates and prevalence of severe disease before putting out new guidance “soon.”