Update: The D.C. Council on Tuesday adopted a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, requiring lawmakers and staff to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 31 or face possible discipline ranging from termination for staff to censure for lawmakers, unless they have an approved medical or religious exemption.

The only dissenting vote came from Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8), who said that while he was fully vaccinated — and held up his vaccine card to prove the point — he didn’t believe in forcing others to follow suit.

“I’m not in support of this uniform policy that affects everyone,” he said. “We should not be using our power to mandate what people put inside their bodies.”

At-large Councilmember Elissa Silverman said staff in her office want a vaccine mandate and have named it as their top concern about returning to work. “It’s not just about free will,” she said. “COVID highlights our interconnectedness.”

Mayor Muriel Bowser has instituted her own vaccine requirements for D.C. government employees, as has Attorney General Karl Racine. But being its own branch of government, it was left to the council to impose its own vaccine mandate. Lawmakers have been meeting and voting virtually since the pandemic started in March 2020, but Chairman Phil Mendelson has said he hopes to return to in-person sessions at the Wilson Building in early January.

Any lawmaker or staffer who receives a medical or religious exemption to the mandate will have to undergo weekly COVID testing.

Original: D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has requested that the council consider an internal resolution during next week’s legislative session that would require all councilmembers and their staff to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 31, or face “disciplinary action.”

According to a memo circulated to members and staff on Thursday, “failure to adhere to the vaccine policy would constitute a violation of the Council Rules and employees who do not comply would face disciplinary action.” Religious or medical exemptions may be submitted, and those individuals must undergo weekly testing.

In order to enforce the new policy, Mendelson will introduce an amendment to an existing law that would grant him the authority to take disciplinary action against Council employees — including those that are not his own staffers — for failing to comply with the policy, “up to and including termination.”

Council staff who refuse a vaccine without claiming a medical or religious exemption by Oct. 31 will be placed on administrative leave for 30 days, or until they get vaccinated — whichever comes first. If they’re still not vaccinated after 30 days, “disciplinary action shall commence for failure to submit proof of vaccination,” including a possible firing.

The repercussions for unvaccinated councilmembers are less clear: “Councilmembers who fail to comply with the vaccine mandate of this policy shall be subject to appropriate discipline.”

In an email to DCist/WAMU, Mendelson says the likely form of discipline, as allowed by council rules, would be reprimand or censure — not expulsion. A reprimand is a formal statement of the council officially disapproving the conduct of one of its members, and a censure is a formal penalty, but it carries no suspension or fine. Any disciplinary measure against a sitting councilmember would need to be adopted by the full council.

But Mendelson says he hopes that no punishment will be necessary. According to the chairman, a potential mandate was discussed during a meeting about vaccines and reopening procedures amongst council staff earlier in September. Given the council’s structure, authority over personnel rests with individual members, but he said he and other councilmembers wanted to develop a vaccine requirement with “more teeth.” In order to ensure that the mandate was followed, he says, the only option was to move the power to terminate those who a refuse a vaccine to the chairman.

“I can assure you, this is not a power I want,” Mendelson says. “It’s not as if we’re saying ‘oh we’re going to do this if Johnny’s not going to comply’…It’s less the concern that somebody won’t [comply] and more, how do we make sure that this gets complied with.”

Unlike the rest of D.C. government workers, councilmembers and staff are not subject to the city-wide D.C. employee vaccine mandate, which required all workers, contractors, interns, and people who receive grant money from the city to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 19 or undergo weekly testing. Because the council and Mayor Muriel Bowser exist as co-equal branches of government, she has no authority to institute a personnel policy that would affect the council or its staff. As a spokesperson for Mendelson explained it: “Much like the President of the United States couldn’t dictate personnel or other policies for the House or Senate.”

According to Bowser’s office, 75% of the city’s workforce has self-reported as vaccinated. While councilmembers have called for a full mandate with no weekly testing options for workers city-wide, Bowser has so far declined to do so. She did, however, institute a full mandate for D.C. school staff and childcare workers earlier this month.

Mendelson’s proposed vaccine policy is not a bill, but an internal council resolution, so it needs only a majority vote to pass and doesn’t require Bowser’s signature. The proposed amendment granting him the power to remove a staffer that is not his own, however, needs to be passed through an act, since it’s changing a standing law. This requires nine votes and approval from Bowser, but the chairman’s office is confident she’ll sign it since the amendment only applies to the council.

When asked about the proposal during a press conference Friday, Bowser said she thinks the council “should at least do as much as everyone in D.C. government is doing,” but was seemingly unaware of the termination threat for staffers outlined in the proposal. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to DCist/WAMU’s request for comment on the stricter aspect of Mendelson’s policy.

A number of councilmembers told DCist/WAMU that they’re in support of the chairman’s proposed mandate, including Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, At-large Councilmember Christina Henderson, At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman, and Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen. The remaining councilmembers did not immediately return DCist/WAMU’s request for comment on the measure.

Several councilmembers have publicly received their vaccines: Chairman Mendelson, Ward 7’s Vince Gray, and At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds are featured in promotional vaccination commercials as #SeniorSocialInfluencers, and Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh participated in a Moderna vaccine clinical trial last fall where she received the vaccine. At-large Councilmember Robert White shared a picture in February celebrating his vaccine.

Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, and At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman are all vaccinated, according to spokespeople. Ward 4’s Janeese Lewis George, Ward 1’s Brianne Nadeau, Ward 2’s Brooke Pinto, and At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson are all fully vaccinated, as are 100% of their staff members, according to spokespeople in each office.

Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White’s office did not respond to DCist/WAMU’s request for vaccination status. (Last year, White declined to address a skeptical vaccine comment posted from his Instagram account. It was not confirmed whether White himself had left the comment.)

According to a Council staffer, 166 council employees had self-reported their vaccination status, as of Sept 13. Of those 166 employees, 150 were fully vaccinated. At the time, the council employed 187 people full-time, according to the staffer.

In an email to DCist/WAMU, Mendelson says he is not aware of any councilmembers that are unvaccinated, and the Council Secretary’s office cannot disclose the vaccination status of employees.

“Once the vaccine policy is in effect, we will see,” Mendelson wrote.

This story has been updated to include that Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen supports the vaccine mandate.