It’s campaign season, and the kitchen was eventually going to get hot.
According to a recent fundraising letter from congressional candidate Nick Begich, Congressman Don Young is requiring everyone in his government office to be vaccinated for Covid-19. One worker has allegedly lost his/her job over the mandate, said Begich.
Begich, who has been crisscrossing the state since late October, is now starting to call out the congressman on issues where the two differ.
Calls to Young’s office and campaign, and attempts since last week to get an answer about the accusation, resulted in no answer to Must Read Alaska.
Whether or not the vaccine mandate is a winning issue for Begich remains to be seen. In an August poll reviewed by Must Read Alaska, taken when Delta variant was raging, Alaskans were split on the vaccine mandate question. Republicans greatly opposed a vaccine mandate, while Democrats supported it.
Begich’s campaign manager, Truman Reed, is a former staffer for Young and said he has known about this for a while.
“The cornerstone of the American Republic is our understanding that the government protects our rights; it doesn’t grant them. Therefore, the government cannot rescind our rights, including our right to make decisions about our individual health. I believe that this right rests with you, and as such, I have not supported and will not support these vaccine mandates,” Begich says in his email to supporters.
“Don Young disagrees. In fact, his own staff has been required to comply with a vaccine mandate he put in place in his own office. Don Young even went so far as to fire an employee who didn’t want to be vaccinated. As if that wasn’t enough, he also voted for HR 550, a bill that would establish a national vaccine tracking database. In other words, Don Young believes he and others in government have the authority to make these decisions for you! That’s plain wrong,” Begich writes.
Begich, the Republican Begich, filed for Congress in late October and has earned the endorsement of over 100 Alaskans, dozens of them conservative elected leaders from across the state. He and his family live in Chugiak, where he operates an international business and is an angel business investor.
