Paul Renner: No one will leave upcoming Legislative Special Session happy
Paul Renner is moving right along — monerywise. Image via Colin Hackley

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Neither mandates nor employee restrictions will receive strong support, he predicts.

Speaker-Designate Paul Renner predicts no one will leave satisfied from a soon-to-be-announced Special Session on vaccine mandates.

“Probably nobody’s happy at the end,” he said. “The people on the side of vaccinate or terminate are unhappy. And the people that are on the side of, ‘I can tell my employer what the terms of my employment are and if I get sick they have to pay for it,’ they’re probably not going to be happy either.”

Renner’s comments came at the 2021 annual meeting for Florida TaxWatch, and the same day Gov. Ron DeSantis was expected to announce details of a Session. The lawmaker stressed he doesn’t speak for the full Legislature and is not yet the presiding officer over the House.

The Palm Coast Republican cast more shade at President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate, which is prompting DeSantis to call a Special Session weeks before the Regular Session begins.

“The Biden administration, they promised us unity. They’ve given us uniformity. And there’s been no sense of balance,” Renner said.

He characterized mandates as a likely overreach, much as last year’s COVID-19 lockdowns ultimately turned out to be.

“I don’t think there’s anybody anywhere on the political spectrum that thinks we ought to be in full blown lockdown and shut the economy (down) because we see how awful that has been,” Renner said.

The pandemic will eventually become endemic and a fact of life, Renner said. While he did not want to compare COVID-19 to the flu, he said the government should ultimately take a similar approach to COVID-19 vaccines as to flu shots. Encourage them, but don’t mandate them.

At the same time, he said many in the Republican Legislature have little appetite for telling employers how to run their businesses. That may mean any ban on employers imposing their own requirements on workers to get the jab may fall flat.

Jacob Ogles

Jacob Ogles has covered politics in Florida since 2000 for regional outlets including SRQ Magazine in Sarasota, The News-Press in Fort Myers and The Daily Commercial in Leesburg. His work has appeared nationally in The Advocate, Wired and other publications. Events like SRQ’s Where The Votes Are workshops made Ogles one of Southwest Florida’s most respected political analysts, and outlets like WWSB ABC 7 and WSRQ Sarasota have featured his insights. He can be reached at [email protected].


6 comments

  • Evan S Miller

    October 28, 2021 at 2:50 pm

    I don’t even leave sitting on my toilet happy. I repaint the walls weekly.

  • SwampYankee

    October 28, 2021 at 6:42 pm

    What this RINO is saying is that an employer has the authority to force a medical treatment on the employee or lose your job.
    Since when is it the business of the employer to mandate certain medical procedures? It is not the business of the employer to know anything about the employees personal medical choices.
    That RINO does not care about the individual like this country is all about. He is more of a corporate fascist.
    I suppose if employers made it a condition of employment for males to get a sex change because they look meaner than women that RINO would throw his hands up in the air, walk away and say he doesn’t want to tell employers how to run their business.
    This is PATHETIC! We need representatives who actually represent the individual fundamentals of America. Individual freedom wow what a concept.

    FJB!

  • David S Downes

    November 1, 2021 at 1:54 pm

    I do not believe these mandates are constitutional. People reserve the right to do as they wish with their bodies and what they put in them, as long as it is legal.

  • Wanda Downes

    November 1, 2021 at 2:23 pm

    We want a complete ban on vaccine mandates by employers or government, both state and local.

    • Anonymurai

      November 2, 2021 at 10:51 pm

      Absolutely Agreed! — This is an egregious violation of our Constitution period!

  • Anonymurai

    November 2, 2021 at 10:52 pm

    “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”—Patrick Henry

    “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”—Abraham Lincoln

Comments are closed.


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