Remote and isolated from the chamber as a consequence of their refusing to show proof of vaccination, New Jersey Assembly Republicans over the phone propped up COVID-19 positive U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) as a reason for dispensing with the rules.

“This has no public benefit,” Assemblyman Hal Wirths (R-24) said. “How does the vaccine make us safer?”

Booker and fellow U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) came down with COVID over the weekend. Given the heave-ho earlier this month, Wirths and his statehouse-barred colleagues noted that Democrats like the two U.S. senators are conceivably super-spreading the virus because, with the vaccine, they freely walk public hallways and “think they’re invincible.”

“How does the vaccine card makes us safer?” Wirths demanded of Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-19), who all day jousted with the virtual GOP, including Wirths’ colleague Assemblyman Erik Peterson (R-23).

“It’s well-established that [a COVID-19 vaccination] is designed to protect members, staff press,” Said Coughlin. “It’s well-established science that people are safer when they’re vaccinated. If you choose not to be vaccinated, you can have a rapid test right outside the door. It’s axiomatic that people are safer with the vaccine than when they are not vaccinated. …This is about probabilities not possibilities.”

Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-26) wanted to know on what basis Coughlin could hit the eject button on Republicans who could not supply proof of vaccination or the results of a rapid test. Coughlin said he is charged with protecting the health and safety of the facility, as laid out in Rule 4:2-b

Webber was unimpressed.

“I want to associate myself with the comments of Assemblyman Wirths, especially with Omicron it seems discriminatory,” said Webber. “If we really care about public health, we would test every member of the chamber rather than just selecting those unvaccinated.”

Coughlin was equally unimpressed, and he held the rostrum.

But the GOP spent the rest of the late afternoon dragging on the session, with incessant flowery and gratuitous descriptions of those bills up for consideration by the Assembly. At one point, and in a sign of the tactic engineered to stall the day’s work and punish the speaker for booting non-vaccine-proofed GOP members out of the chamber, a Republican assemblyman spoke on behalf of his support for A-5864. The bill would allow law enforcement officers to review body worn camera recordings prior to creating an initial report. The GOP lawmaker noted that the state trooper who removed him from the statehouse had not deployed a camera to record his trampling on the assemblyman’s constitutional rights.

It proved one of the more creative moments by the virtual group of Republicans, who successfully slowed the session with their hours-long civil protest, as Coughlin patiently maintained his composure at a turtle’s pace. 

“Mr. Speaker, I can’t hear anything you’re saying,” a member said, when Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly (D-35) in his role as deputy speaker subbed for Coughlin during the evening hours.

“I’m having the same trouble with you,” Wimberly said.