The New York Times | June 15, 2021
Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, issued a similar order, saying that requiring proof of vaccination would “reduce individual freedom” and “harm patient privacy” as well as “create two classes of citizens based on vaccinations.”
But those orders may not stick. “The governors are on shaky legal ground,” said Lawrence Gostin, the director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. “Certainly, the legislature has authority to regulate businesses in the state, and it can also pre-empt counties and local governments from issuing vaccine passports. But a governor, acting on his or her own, has no inherent power to regulate businesses other than through emergency or other health powers that the legislature gives them.”