Lawmaker: Florida’s Executive Order Banning Vaccine Passports ‘Must be Passed into Law’ to Enforce

Florida State House Representative Anthony Sabatini (R) said Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) executive order banning vaccine passports has no enforceable mechanisms or consequence to exercise against potential violators.

Sabatini tweeted, “This Order is immediate, but MUST be passed into law. As a State Rep., I’ll be fighting to make sure this law passes ASAP!”

The executive order mandates that “Businesses in Florida are prohibited from requiring patrons or customers to provide any documentation certifying COVID-19 vaccination or post-transmission recovery to gain access to, entry upon, or service from the business.” However, there is no enforceable measure or consequence for breaking the order, which simply instructs, “All executive agencies under my [DeSantis] direction shall work to ensure businesses comply with this order.”

Sabatini also told Breitbart News, “I look forward to pushing legislation in the Florida House to pass this into Florida law immediately—and also to add an enforcement mechanism that will allow for punishment of the woke businesses that violate the law,” adding that he suspects “most of the [Republican] caucus will support” the measure.

Republican Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls expressed support for the legislation in March. “That’s totally and wholly unreasonable based on what’s happening out there in the world,” Sprowls said. “I think that businesses have required a number of things that comply with CDC guidelines. I don’t believe that is something that the CDC is even calling for. I have not had a single business owner who has reached out to me and said we are in dire need of doing a COVID-19 vaccine passport.”

Republican Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson, however, is less enthused. “On the surface I would say ‘yes’ because they are a private business,” Simpson said. “They can do what they want, but, clearly, they will bear the responsibility of that decision.”

To further support the legislative effort, Sabatini has designed a petition to “ban vaccine passports” to ensure that “Floridians should be allowed to make their own decision to take the vaccine or not.”