The Republican-led Arkansas state house passed a bill that would allow any employee to opt out of his/her employer’s vaccine mandate for any reason, undercutting one of President Biden’s key incentives for getting inoculated, the Associated Press reports.

Passed on a 68-23 vote, the measure is being touted by Arkansas Republicans as a way to counter the claimed overreach of the federal government trying to motivate vaccine hesitant people to get the shot.  “The intent of this bill is to protect employees from that overreach,” one of the bill’s sponsors, Republican legislator Josh Bryant, said.

Like the President’s suggested policy to employers, the Arkansas bill will allow employees to opt out if they get weekly coronavirus tests.  Unlike Biden’s policy, the Arkansas one would allow employees to opt out if they can prove they have coronavirus antibodies. 

Public health professionals say antibody measurements are not an effective way to tell if someone is coronavirus positive and therefore capable of transmitting the virus to others.

Even if the measure passes the Republican-controlled state senate, it may not get the signature of Republican Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who has decried Biden’s employer proposal, which would impact only companies with more than 100 employees.

“Employers have the freedom to protect the health of their workplace, and government should not interfere with the employee/employer relationship,” Hutchinson said in a statement released by his office. “We should not fight federal overreach with a solution that causes more problems than it solves.”