Texas Political Update December 20, 2021

Posted December 20, 2021

As Primary election season approaches and campaigns kick into high gear, the omicron variant is spreading quickly. Texas officials, health experts, and politicians are navigating this new variant and seeing how it impacts mandate-averse Texas.

Texas Fighting Federal Vaccine Mandate

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has pledged to take the fight against a federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate for large businesses to the U.S. Supreme Court. That vow came after the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 vote that the mandate set by the Biden administration could go back into effect. Under the directive, companies with more than 100 employees must require that their workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4th or get tested weekly for the virus. The mandate would affect around 80 million workers.

Omicron Variant of COVID-19 Spreading

As the omicron variant of COVID-19 quickly spreads across the United States, public health experts fear that Texas’ health care system could once again be overwhelmed by the disease within weeks. The new variant of the coronavirus was detected in Texas for the first time earlier this month, and outbreaks and surging case counts have since been tied to the strain. Although COVID-19 hospitalizations remain relatively low in most of the state, a fast-rising number of people are testing positive for the virus in the state’s urban centers. Hospitals in the Texas Panhandle and El Paso are again filling up with COVID-19 patients, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Medical researchers are trying to determine how severe omicron-related infections are on unvaccinated individuals or even the less-recently vaccinated, since evidence of more mild infections is based largely on anecdotal cases among a younger population, like in South Africa.

Filing Deadline Passed; Primary Season Approaches

Now that the candidate filing deadline has passed, campaigns are kicking into high gear for the primary election season. Election Day is Tuesday, March 1, 2022 and the early voting period goes for two weeks prior: from Monday, February 14th through Friday, February 25th.

Shannon Meroney

Shannon Meroney brings ten years experience as a multi-state lobbyist based primarily at the Texas Capitol and ten years of courtroom legal expertise to her dynamic government affairs consulting practice. Prior to creating Meroney Public Affairs LLC, Shannon spent six years as a Senior Government Relations Manager for Aetna, a Fortune 100 health insurance corporation with multi-state responsibility. Previous to that, she was a Partner at the Texas law firm Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons representing multiple corporate clients and large trade associations at the Capitol, in the courtroom and providing legal drafting and analysis expertise.