You own a small business in Louisiana.
You've made no good faith effort to responsibly run that business in the midst of the still ongoing pandemic and you certainly aren't going to require patrons be vaccinated before doing business with you.
If this is you, Rep. Danny McCormick (R-Oil City) wants you to have the same legal protections as those businesses who have been making that good faith effort.
Rep. Danny McCormick (R-Oil City) from his video "Vaccine or NO Vaccine?" posted to his Facebook page on April 12
| facebook.com/McCormick4LA/
"If I tell you, 'You can't come into my business until you take the vaccine' and then you take it and it has a negative effect, that won't cost me nothing," McCormick said, referring to protections already in place. "But if I don't force you to take the vaccine and you come in, somebody can maybe sue me for you not having that. To me, what this is about, 100%, is about liberty. It's about the ability to choose for yourself whether you take the COVID vaccine or not. Period."
A business should not have to essentially compel its customers to get the COVID-19 vaccine, McCormick said.
"It's about protecting the liberty of a person to buy, sell and trade without somebody forcing them to take a vaccine," he said.
House Bill 103 would extend to businesses that don't require a vaccine - or anything else intended to slow COVID - the same protections currently in place for those businesses who do.
"I would never mandate a vaccine," the representative said. "Your body is your private property. It should be your choice whether you take the COVID-19 vaccine or not. It 100% should be your choice."
HB 103 was prefiled into the House on March 11 and referred to the Committee on Civil Law and Procedure about a month later. HB 103 is not on the agenda for the House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure's next meeting Monday. McCormick said that committee Chair Gregory A. Miller (R-Norca) told him hearing for HB 103 should happen in the next couple of weeks.
McCormick, who owns M & M Oil Company in Oil City, also earlier this month introduced House Bill 617, which would declare Louisiana a “fossil fuel sanctuary state” and create special sovereignty to nullify any federal tax, regulation or law required to enforce that status on behalf of the oil and gas industry.
McCormick has represented Louisiana House District 1 northwest Louisiana since January of last year.
Louisiana already has enacted COVID-19 liability shields for those businesses that make a good faith effort to responsibly conduct business amid the pandemic, such as requiring masks and social distancing, to protect their employees and customers. Among those laws is House Bill 826, signed by Gov. John Bel Edwards last summer, provides COVID liability protection for any businesses that demonstrably tries to slow the spread of COVID on its premises. That legislation also bars employees who contract COVID-19 from a tort remedy against their employer unless they can prove they got sick because of an intentional act.
"I did vote for it," McCormick said, quickly adding that he has come to regret it because of its unintended consequences. "That was to protect the businesses. Now it has got them hemmed up to where they have to require things of their employees that they don't even want to require anymore. If that makes sense. In typical fashion, we passed something we thought was good but it turns out that it's not working that way."
Earlier this month, McCormick made clear his opinions about the vaccine in a video, "Vaccine or NO Vaccine?," posted to his Facebook page.
"It's your body and it's your choice," McCormick said in the April 12 Facebook video. "If you decided to get the COVID-19 vaccine, I support you 100%. If you decide not to get the vaccine, I support you 100%."
McCormick said in the video that he has opted not to get the vaccine because of his age, lack of any underlying conditions and he's already survived COVID-19. He also criticized the bullying, guilty and frightening of people into getting vaccinated who may otherwise opt out.
"We live in a constitutional republic," he said. "And in a republic, the rights and responsibilities belong to the individual."