The Iowa Standard participated in this week’s Capitol Hill Report with Sen. Chuck Grassley. One topic discussed was the COVID vaccine mandates being developed by the federal government.
“I don’t think he has the constitutional authority to do it and I think the courts will soon be speaking to that because I’ve heard several governors and state attorneys general responding to it by court case. I would not vote for mandatory vaccination. I, on the other hand, I’m an advocate for vaccination because I believe that it does work and I’ve been vaccinated even though I had COVID. I probably wouldn’t have to be vaccinated with COVID, but we’re learning so much. And I think it’s pretty clear in my state of Iowa that Iowans don’t want the heavy hand of the federal government dictating to them like that.”
We followed up and asked Sen. Grassley what state governments could do to protect their citizens against a federal mandate.
“I think you’re asking a constitutional question I’m not prepared to answer very definitively except to know that the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, which is not used as much as it should be — I believe in the Tenth Amendment — but it’s what you call the police powers of the state to protect the public health, safety and welfare. It might be included there. Someplace, you’d have to look this up because I can’t give you a definitive where I read it, but someplace way back 100 years ago, I think in some Massachusetts case, the Supreme Court said something about states could have vaccinations required and things of that nature. I don’t know whether it’s so much people being anti-vaccine but not trusting this because it’s so new and because FDA was a long time given certainty final approval to some of the products. And things of that nature and maybe even some, you know, Vice President Harris saying before the election ‘if Reagan Administration approves this vaccine, I may not take it.’ Well, obviously that was a stupid statement that she made. I said that wrong — Harris said it about Trump. If Trump had anything to do with it she wouldn’t want to take it. So you’ll have to look some of that stuff up as far as the Constitutional history because I can’t give you much more.”
