A half-dozen Republican senators have introduced a bill that would repeal D.C.’s requirement that any student over the age of 12 get a COVID-19 vaccine to be able to attend public school, calling the mandate “racist” and “highly politicized.”

“No family should be forced to choose between the health of their child and their child’s education,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), one of the authors of the bill. “This not the early days of COVID; the vast majority of individuals have not only recovered from COVID, they have recovered from COVID multiple times. Parents should make health and education decisions for their children.”

Lankford was joined by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi), and Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), none of whom were elected by D.C. residents but have the constitutional authority to overturn local laws or impose legislation on the city.

The bill would both prohibit D.C. from spending any money to enforce any COVID-19 vaccine mandate for school students, and also repeal legislation passed by the D.C. Council in late 2021 imposing the vaccine mandate for students and also requiring that child care workers get vaccines. D.C. is the only jurisdiction in the country that has adopted a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for school students, one which lawmakers said would help keep both students and staff safe in school.

Lankford’s bill mirrors one introduced by Cruz earlier this year; the Texas senator has since called D.C.’s mandate “completely evil” and more recently said it is racist because the rate of vaccinations for Black students is lower than it is for their white counterparts.

According to data from D.C. Health, 73% of kids aged 12-15 and 77% of kids between 16 and 17 have gotten their primary vaccine series. But there are discrepancies based on race: Close to 90% of white kids in those age ranges are vaccinated, compared to roughly 60% of Black kids. (During the council debate on the bill, the Council’s Office of Racial Equity said the mandate could exacerbate racial inequities by disproportionately removing Black students from school.)

Responding in part to those discrepancies, D.C. officials announced in late August that they would delay enforcement of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate until January, and delay other deadlines for regular immunizations that have been required for years. D.C. pushed for months over the summer to help students catch up on many immunizations that officials say fell to the wayside during the pandemic.

According to D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s office, Lankford and Cruz’s bill is one of at least 11 efforts by Republicans to overturn pandemic-related measures adopted by D.C.’s locally elected officials. Earlier this year, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) introduced bills to repeal the city’s now-defunct requirement that people present proof of vaccination before entering businesses and facilities, and more recently, 12 Republicans wrote a letter threatening to repeal the city’s home rule if the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for school students was enforced.

None of the efforts have gone anywhere, largely because Democrats control both houses of Congress, though that could change after the November midterm elections.

In a statement, Norton took particular aim at Cruz for writing bills targeting D.C.

“Senator Ted Cruz is a regular violator of D.C. home rule,” she said. “Senator Cruz, like many other Republicans who profess to support local control of local affairs, tries to use the federal government’s undemocratic power over D.C. to dictate local D.C. policy. D.C.’s duly elected local government adopted the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students, and Senator Cruz does not have the right to interfere in this policy decision. Until my D.C. statehood bill is enacted, Republicans will continue to try to interfere in D.C.’s local affairs.”