At least one Recall Gavin 2020 gubernatorial candidate believes the governor has overstepped his authority in requiring all state workers and healthcare workers to show proof of full vaccination or test negative weekly for COVID-19.
“The vaccine mandate is inappropriate,” said real estate developer Doug Ose, who is among some 46 candidates seeking to replace Gov. Newsom on Sept. 14 in a special recall election.
“I think the government is overreaching by trying to dictate to businesses and individuals how to conduct their private affairs. The government is headed into a hornet's nest in trying to tell employers or employees how to conduct their affairs.”
Ose, a Republican, is a former congressman for the 7th Congressional District. He ran for governor against Gov. Newsom in 2018.
“The state is venturing into a legal morass that’s going to be in the courts forever,” Ose told the Southern California Record. “The government does not need to be interfering in private contracts between employer and employee. I just don't see the wisdom in that.”
The policy was announced in response to a rise in coronavirus cases and the emergence of the Delta variant, a more infectious strain.
“We are now dealing with a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and it’s going to take renewed efforts to protect Californians from the dangerous Delta variant,” Gov. Newsom said in a statement online. “As the state’s largest employer, we are leading by example and requiring all state and health care workers to show proof of vaccination or be tested regularly, and we are encouraging local governments and businesses to do the same. Vaccines are safe – they protect our family, those who truly can’t get vaccinated, our children, and our economy. Vaccines are the way we end this pandemic.”
As of Aug. 10, California had 3,959,797 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, resulting in 64,328 deaths, according to the state's coronavirus dashboard.
The state of California is also requiring visitors at hospitals and other medical facilities to be vaccinated or test negative for the coronavirus before entry.
“Gov. Newsom believes that he can micromanage yours and my life better than you and I can manage our lives,” Ose said. “This is a fundamental problem. The hospitals should be making these decisions, not the governor. The government overreach into our private affairs must stop.”
Under Gov. Newsom’s mandate, health care and government workers who choose to remain unvaccinated will be subject to weekly coronavirus testing and be required to wear appropriate PPE, according to a press release.
But Ose scoffs at the troubled governor’s order.
“My wife works in healthcare,” he said. “She has been wearing a mask at work and has been vaccinated since February. State workers have either been at home working remotely, or they've already been wearing masks in the office. As far as the impact of it, any employer under state law has the right to lay down conditions of employment and employees can choose whether or not they want to continue working there or not.”
Although Gov. Newsom is mandating state and healthcare workers be vaccinated or test negative weekly, he is not applying the same standard to teachers, according to media reports.
“I have strong feelings about how important public education is and I resent having been held hostage by the union bosses for the last 18 months over the education of our children and yet I still come back to this point of saying these are individual contracts between employer and employee, and they need to be left to be resolved between employer and employee,” Ose added. “Just because it's the teachers and just because I'm irritated with Gov. Newsom does not change the principle that these are private contracts and they need to be resolved between employer and employee.”