As coronavirus regulations are lifted and reconsidered nationwide, President Joe Biden's military COVID-19 vaccine mandate is still in force and it’s driving soldiers out of the service every day, according to California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa.
“Tens of thousands more maybe next,” Issa tweeted on Twitter last week. “We need to stop this now.”
While Issa’s office is documenting the stories of active-duty members of the armed forces who are at risk of being terminated if they refuse the vaccine, GOP congressional candidate Tamika Hamilton is helping members of the military who are under her command in the U.S. Air Force.
Hamilton family
| Twitter
“There's an exemption process that you have to go through and I am helping them with the process,” Hamilton told the Southern California Record. “I went through the whole process of religious exemption. I was denied and then it came down to my career or get the vaccine.”
The married mother of five children who is seeking election to the 6th Congressional district believes more research should be done on the vaccine.
“For those who are apprehensive about getting the vaccine, I think that they should be allowed to wait,” she said. “It’s important for me to show that you have to go through the process of religious exemption especially if you want to stay in and all good people can’t just get out. We have good airmen who need to be protected.”
Hamilton is an active reserve member of the Air Force and if elected, she plans to remain employed by the military.
“Being in the military, we've gotten more vaccines than probably most people in a room on any given day just because of the nature of the different places that we have to travel to,” Hamilton said. “I am vaccinated so I'm not afraid of it but I just don't believe in mandates.”
Hamilton campaigned in 2020 as a Republican but lost to Democrat John Garamendi who garnered 54% of the vote, according to Ballotpedia.
"It was my first time and it's rough the first go around," she added. "I think that 45%, even in 2020 with all the stuff happening that year, that's pretty good. This is a really important election because our lives are not getting any better here in California."
Rep. Issa, whose term ends on January 3, 2023, is one of 38 members of Congress who signed onto an amicus brief that supports a federal lawsuit filed in Texas against Biden, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro demanding an armed forces religious exemption for vaccination mandates.
“Defendants’ policies mandating that Plaintiffs be vaccinated in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs do not come close to satisfying the strictest scrutiny Congress demands in Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” wrote attorney Thomas S. Brandon, Jr. in the friend of the court brief. “Defendants’ vaccine mandate forces Plaintiffs—individuals who have devoted their lives to the protection of the country—to choose between following their sincerely held religious convictions and effectively, being discharged, losing their calling, and destroying their financial well-being.”