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With his lawyer objecting to COVID-19 vaccines as “experimental injections” and coronavirus tests as invasive medical procedures, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller asked a state judge Tuesday to void Texas Senate rules requiring Capitol visitors to obtain a negative test or show proof of vaccination, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
“I believe in the statement in the constitution that the citizens of Texas have the right to petition their government. I can’t see where it says if they’ve taken a COVID vaccine, or if they’ve taken a COVID test, or they take a, you know, strep test or if they take an HIV test,” Miller testified.
“I believe in transparency. I believe in open government. And this restricts the public’s access to petition their government,” he told state District Judge Jan Soifer of Travis County during a three-hour hearing.
Senators unanimously adopted rules for this legislative session that require showing proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test, administered at no cost at the Capitol’s north entrance, to get a wristband granting access to a committee hearing room or the gallery overlooking the Senate floor.
Lawyers for Attorney General Ken Paxton defended the rule as a reasonable effort to protect health and ensure the Senate’s continued operation under authority granted by the Texas Constitution.
“No one is required to undergo a COVID test in order to access constitutional rights. The testing is voluntary,” Emily Ardolino, Paxton’s deputy chief of general litigation, argued Tuesday — adding that a test is not required to email or telephone senators, submit written testimony during a committee hearing or view Senate meetings online.
“There are many alternate means to participating in petitioning government (and) observing sessions,” Ardolino told the judge. “It really just comes down to, they don’t want to. Disagreement with a government policy does not create a constitutionally protected right.”
Soifer ended the hearing, conducted online and livestreamed on the court’s YouTube channel, by saying that she hoped to issue a ruling by the end of Friday.
Conservative GOP activist Steven Hotze of Houston, who joined Miller in the lawsuit, also testified Tuesday, saying he was denied access to the Senate gallery and a committee hearing on March 2 because he refused to submit to a COVID-19 test and refuses to take the vaccine.
Miller also said he will not get the vaccine, believing he has natural antibodies after an earlier bout with COVID-19, meaning the only way he can testify — as he did when called before the Senate Finance Committee several months ago to review his agency’s budget — was to undergo a test beforehand.
“I had to take the COVID test, wait for the negative results, get tagged like a cow, get a wristband put on before I could enter the building,” he said.
Miller’s lawyer, Jared Woodfill, described the Senate rule as nonsensical, irrational and arbitrary — setting an invasive testing requirement not observed by the Texas House, any other state agency or any government that endured previous pandemics.
“Nobody has ever done anything as draconian as what has been put forward by the Texas Senate. So if the court allows that to stand, we believe it would set a horrible precedent,” Woodfill said.