Tempers flare during Michigan House Oversight Committee hearing on vaccine passports

(The Center Square) – Heated interactions over vaccine passports continued in the Michigan House Oversight Committee’s weekly meeting Thursday morning.

The committee convened to discuss House Bill 4667, which would preemptively prohibit COVID-19 vaccine passports in Michigan. Tensions flared when Committee Chair Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Wayland, sparred with Rep. Julie Brixie, D-Okemos, over committee procedures as well as Brixie’s unfamiliarity with the substituted language of the bill based on concerns voiced by Brixie in last week’s meeting.

The bill eventually was passed by the committee by a 6-3 vote.

Among the substitutions was a change to the bill’s language that differentiated the vaccination card issued by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from a state-issued vaccine passport.

Reading from the substitute language, Johnson said: “COVID-19 vaccination passport means a document or system created or used for the primary purpose of diminishing or enlarging an individual’s civil and political rights, privileges and capacities based on the individual’s COVID-19 vaccination status.”

Brixie responded the definition of passport in the substituted language “is still far too broad.” She added the language was “problematic,” and continued, “For example, does a business or other private entity requiring somebody to show their vaccine card for entry into a private event or establishment diminish someone’s political and civil rights?”

She said the CDC-issued cards inevitably will be required for entrance to certain events and businesses, and are therefore interchangeable with passports.

Johnson countered the primary purpose of the CDC card is as a medical record, and HB 4667 specifically limits government from issuing or requiring vaccine passports. He referred to other bills currently under consideration in the House that propose limiting private entities from requiring individuals show proof of their respective vaccinations.

“Quite frankly, you did not come to me with any of these concerns before committee,” Johnson told Brixie. “I said very clearly at the last committee we’re going to take this up next week, if you have amendments get those to us. You’ve got my email, you never emailed me. You’ve got my cell, you never text me. Your office is three doors down from mine; you never walked over and talked to me. Instead you’re bringing this up now. It makes me think you’re not actually serious about this issue, you’re just trying to grandstand here.”

Brixie responded it was difficult to discuss the substitutions with Johnson because she had only received them the previous morning.

“What is the purpose of these hearings? Is this not the forum where we are supposed to give people the right to air and discuss language that we are proposing that influences and impacts businesses and people all over this great state of Michigan?” she asked.

“That is what we’re here for. I am doing my job right now. I have the right to ask questions in committee, so don’t make some kind of inferences that I’m doing something wrong by asking a question at a committee hearing. That’s the whole purpose of the committee hearings.”

Brixie and Johnson bantered further. She stated she hadn’t received the substitution until after 4 p.m. Wednesday when the full House was in session, while Johnson said the reason it was delivered so late was because he had been waiting for her comments.

“It’s also, what, a 2½ page bill? So it takes about two minutes to read,” he said.

When asked by Johnson if she was good, a noticeably upset Brixie responded: “No, I’m not good at all.”

Addressing comments made by Rep. David LaGrand during last week’s meeting that issuing laws preemptively on hypothetical matters would establish a legislative precedent prompting a surfeit of unnecessary laws, Johnson noted Hawaii this week announced it would issue vaccine passports.

“This is not a discussion in just pure philosophical terms,” Johnson said. “This is something that actually is happening.” Later, he noted other states were considering similar legislation.

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