{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://arrington.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=693", "Arrington Leads Texas Republicans in Amicus Brief Supporting Texas\u2019 Lawsuit Against the Biden Administration\u2019s Vaccine Mandate for Healthcare Workers", "2021-11-23", "2021", "2021-11", "Republican", "House", "TX", "Jodey C. Arrington", "A000375", "arrington.house.gov", "arrington", "https://arrington.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx?DocumentTypeID=27", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, DC\u2014 Today, Rep. Jodey C. Arrington (TX-19) led Rep. Kevin Brady (TX-8), Rep. Michael Burgess (TX-26), Rep. Dan Crenshaw (TX-2), Rep. Jake Ellzey (TX-6), Rep. Pat Fallon (TX-4), Rep. Louis Gohmert (TX-1), Rep. Ronny Jackson (TX-13), Rep. August Pfluger (TX-11), Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21), Rep. Pete Sessions (TX-17), Rep. Beth Van Duyne (TX-24), and Rep. Roger Williams (TX-25) in filing an Amicus Brief in support of the State of Texas\u2019 lawsuit against the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services\u2019 unconstitutional vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.\n\nRep. Arrington has criticized the CMS vaccine mandate since the Agency announced on November 4, 2021 that healthcare professionals working in Medicare and Medicaid-certified facilities must by fully vaccinated by January 4, 2022.\n\nThe Texas delegation\u2019s Amicus Brief outlines the existing healthcare worker shortage throughout Texas, especially in rural communities, and asserts that the CMS vaccine mandate will exacerbate the shortage.\n\n\u201cThe Biden administration\u2019s overreaching and unconstitutional vaccine mandate threatens the livelihoods of healthcare workers and, in turn, jeopardizes access to care for patients in rural America,\u201d said Rep. Arrington. \u201cUsing vital CMS funding to strongarm hospitals into imposing unconstitutional mandates onto their workforce is reprehensible and dangerous. I\u2019m proud to lead my colleagues in this Amicus Brief and urge the courts to halt the CMS vaccine mandate, as they\u2019ve done with the OSHA vaccine mandate.\u201d\n\n\u201cHealthcare professionals, once heralded as heroes at the height of the pandemic, are frustrated with the number of non-medical mandates and restrictions that have resulted in burnout, increasing numbers leaving the industry, and suicide,\u201d said David Balat, Director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation\u2019s Right on Healthcare Initiative.\u201cThe hospitals and individual staff members know best how to care for themselves and their patients and this mandate from CMS is coming into an environment where there are already critical shortages that stands to make it worse.\u201d", 1, "2026-04-07T12:09:11Z", "2026-06-28T00:49:39Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://arrington.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=693"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9091687388718128, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}