A growing coalition of Republican lawmakers is turning up the heat on the Department of Justice, demanding a federal crackdown on states that don’t allow religious shortcuts for school vaccine requirements.
Led by Florida Representative Greg Steube, the group sent a formal letter on February 6 to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, arguing that current laws in several states are a flat-out violation of the First Amendment.
The dispute centers on New York, California, Maine, and Connecticut—four states that have wiped religious exemptions off the books, leaving only strict medical reasons as a way to opt out of shots.
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Steube and 12 other members of Congress, including Representatives Lauren Boebert and Byron Donalds, claim these states are trampling on the “Free Exercise Clause” by forcing families to choose between their faith and their children’s education.
In the letter, the lawmakers pointed to a 2025 Supreme Court decision, Mahmoud v. Taylor, which they say set a clear precedent that public schools have to provide opt-out options for families with religious objections. They are specifically asking the DOJ to look into ongoing cases in New York, where state health officials have tightened the screws on “paper-only” records and investigated doctors who issue high numbers of exemptions.
“Religious freedom is the cornerstone of our Republic,” Steube said in a statement released Friday. He described the lack of exemptions as an “excuse-free” assault on civil liberties and urged the federal government to launch formal investigations into any state using “coercion” to bypass parental rights.
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The push comes at a time of shifting policy in Washington. The letter explicitly commends the current administration’s focus on religious liberty and name-checks other top officials, including Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.
While supporters of the state mandates argue that high vaccination rates are a matter of public safety and “neutral” application of the law, the lawmakers argue that the system is rigged. They point out that New York allows secular exemptions for various administrative reasons but remains rigid on faith-based ones—a double standard they believe the DOJ needs to address immediately.
As states like Hawaii and Massachusetts consider similar bills to tighten vaccine rules, this letter signals that the fight over where state authority ends and religious freedom begins is heading for a major showdown in the federal courts.
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