Gov. Little boasts ‘medical freedom’ in Idaho, vetoes bill to ban vaccine mandates

Carolyn Komatsoulis, Idaho Statesman

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Idaho schools for now will be able to continue actions to prevent spreading diseases, after Gov. Brad Little on Saturday vetoed a bill that would prohibit mandates on medical interventions.

Little on Saturday vetoed Senate Bill 1023, which would expand on the state’s previous law prohibiting businesses from requiring COVID-19 vaccines. The bill would ban business, as well as schools and preschools, from requiring any medical intervention, including all types of injections. The bill would also bar any treatment “or action taken to diagnose, prevent or cure a disease.”

Little in his transmittal letter wrote that while “medical freedom is an Idaho value,” the bill would prohibit schools from sending students with contagious conditions home. In the letter, Little included a list of other bills he signed into law, including those this month that banned mask mandates and allowed health care professionals to refuse treatments that violated their personal beliefs.

“We are proud that Idaho already boasts the freest laws in the country when it comes to personal medical decisions, and we need to keep it that way,” Little wrote. “Parents already have enough to worry about while raising their children. They do not need government imposing more limitations on keeping children safe and healthy from contagious illnesses at school.”

This is Little’s first veto of the legislative session, and the Idaho Legislature could choose to vote on the bill again to try to override the veto. But the Senate in February approved the bill in a 19-14 vote, less than the two-thirds support it would need for the bill to become law.

Health Freedom Defense Fund Founder Leslie Manookian, who one lawmaker had described as the “real architect” of the bill, told legislators at a committee meeting that the bill was “protecting our God-given rights to decide what’s best for ourselves.”

But some lawmakers had doubts.

Rep. Lori McCann, R-Lewiston, previously said the changes would be too far-reaching by going from COVID-19 vaccines to every medical intervention.

“This is a bridge too far that I cannot get over,” McCann said. “It is too broad.”

House lawmakers passed the bill with more than two-thirds support.