Governor Signs Law Prohibiting Vaccine Mandates

The Florida Legislature’s Special Session was short but powerful, enshrining in state law freedoms for Florida employees and parents.

Under the leadership of Governor DeSantis, the Republican Legislature went into the Session with the clear goal of standing for workers and parents’ rights. The rapid success of these new laws is exactly what robust, principled and effective leadership looks like.

The legislation signed by Governor DeSantis is the strongest pro-freedom, anti-mandate action taken by any state in the nation. 

“I told Floridians that we would protect their jobs and today we made that the law,” Governor DeSantis said. “Nobody should lose their job due to heavy-handed COVID mandates and we had a responsibility to protect the livelihoods of the people of Florida. I’m thankful to the Florida Legislature for joining me in standing up for freedom.”

Here are the elements of the legislation protecting employees:

• Private employer vaccine mandates are prohibited.
• Employees can choose from numerous exemptions, including health or religious concerns; pregnancy or anticipated future pregnancy; and past recovery from COVID-19.
• Employees can choose to opt for periodic testing or PPE as an exemption.
• Prohibits employers from passing along the costs of testing and PPE to employees.
• Employers who violate these employee health protections will be fined. For businesses with 99 employees or less, the fine is $10,000 per employee violation. For businesses with 100 or more employees, the fine is $50,000 per employee violation.
• Government entities may not require COVID-19 vaccinations of anyone, including employees.
• $5 million for the Attorney General to investigate complaints.
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And here are the elements of the legislation protecting families:

• Educational institutions may not require students to be COVID-19 vaccinated.
• School districts may not require students to wear face masks.
• School districts may not quarantine healthy students.
• Students and parents may sue violating school districts and recover costs and attorney’s fees.
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The Governor also signed legislation that would allow for removing Florida businesses from the onerous control of an ever expanding OSHA, and create a Florida equivalent administration to ensure workplace safety without the federal overreach.

Republican leadership in the Legislature was unified and every Republican in both chambers supported the legislation.