To watch Senator Capito’s remarks, click here or the image above.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) today joined a group of her Republican colleagues in discussing their formal challenge to President Biden’s private sector vaccine mandate.

Later today, the Senate will vote on a Congressional Review Act joint resolution of disapproval to attempt to overturn President Biden’s vaccine mandate on private businesses with more than 100 employees.

HIGHLIGHTS:

PRESIDENT BIDEN WENT BACK ON HIS WORD: “I'd like to flashback to a year ago. In response to an answer to a question, President Biden, and I believe he was President-elect Biden at the time, when asked about a mandate for the COVID-19 vaccine said, ‘No, I don't think it should be mandatory. I wouldn't demand it to be mandatory,’ he said. And we've seen through the year that he has gone back on his word.”

WEST VIRGINIANS CONCERNED WITH PRIVATE SECTOR VACCINE MANDATE: “I had a telephone town hall last night. The anxiety of people in my state of West Virginia, and I'm sure it shared with all of our states, over this vaccine mandate is real. It's daunting to families as they're facing higher bills for their gas and their heating. They are very concerned about what this would do to their long-term ability to get a job, keep a job. I think they realize that this is an invasion into their own abilities to make decisions about themselves in their health care.”

PRO-VACCINE, ANTI-MANDATE: “Many of us if not all of us, every time we had the opportunity, are encouraging folks in our state for their own protection. But…encouraging and requiring are two different things. So, if you look at my state, 40% of my state's workforce stands to lose their job under this mandate. Those are manufacturing jobs. Those are public service jobs. Those are smaller businesses, jobs. It's all across the spectrum. And, it will be a killer to our economy.”

MANDATE INFRINGES ON INDIVIDUAL LIBERTIES: “It's bigger than killing the economy. It's killing the American spirit of being able to make decisions about yourself, to be respected for that, and to find the best way to find the healthiest reaction to this pandemic.”

TAKING ACTION TO STAND UP FOR WORKERS: “We were asking people to stay on the job through thick and thin over the last year, and now we're questioning whether they should stay…so I'm very, very pleased to be joining the effort to try to stop this federal overreach and I think President Biden should listen to his own words of a year ago. A mandate is not necessary. It's not something he would put into effect and it's something he does not believe in.”

Read Senator Capito and Senator Braun’s joint op-ed published today in the Washington Examiner on their efforts to block the mandate here.

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