David Schraub
Schraub is an assistant law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, specializing in constitutional and antidiscrimination law. He lives in Portland.
Ever since Gov. Kate Brown announced widespread vaccination mandates for health care workers and other state employees, police officers have been in an uproar. When Portland city officials announced their plan to apply this mandate to the Portland Police Bureau, they were met with promises of a wave of resignations. City officials appear to be giving in to the threats, claiming their authority is limited. They shouldn’t. Police officers are public servants, and Portland police need to accept that they are ultimately subject to civilian oversight, control, and regulation.
It is a disgrace we’ve even come to this point. In 2021, COVID is the single leading cause of death for police officers in the line of duty, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. There may be no single greater threat to officer safety than the prospect of encountering a COVID-positive individual, and there is no way to control or mitigate that risk other than through widespread and comprehensive vaccination.
Even if we accept that some government employees need not be covered by vaccine rules, the police are the last agency that should be able to claim an exemption. The police are a public-facing agency that interacts with some of the most vulnerable Portlanders in unpredictable settings on a daily basis. Unlike, say, the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicles agency, which can enforce a mask mandate or shunt unvaccinated customers into online services, the Portland police largely cannot control when and in what contexts they interact with members of the public. They can’t decline to investigate a crime until they’re certain the criminal is wearing a mask. They can’t refuse to interview a witness until they confirm she’s not immune-suppressed.
And there is a deeper principle here. In city after city, would-be reformers enter city hall with bold plans for action, only to find that the local police do not see themselves as accountable to oversight by elected officials. Legal reforms and policy alterations founder when the police simply decide not to abide by them—effectively daring public officials with “what are you going to do about it?” This claimed entitlement to be above the law is toxic to the very concept of democratic governance.
The mass resignation threat is part of this ignoble tradition: law enforcement officers announcing they’d rather quit their jobs than be subject to the enforcement of the law. But in any event, the city should call the officers’ bluff. A good police officer by necessity must be public-spirited, committed to helping others (including at the expense of her own liberty or safety), and unshakably devoted to the rule of law. An officer who announces she’d resign over a vaccine mandate is effectively informing the people of Portland that she lacks these qualities, and thereby lacks the character and temperament to be a public servant in this role. The city and the force would be better off without them.
Portland officials say that their hands are tied by new guidance suggesting police officers are not covered by the health care vaccine mandate, since they only incidentally engage in “health care” work. If this is the only hold-up, the city of Portland should insist on a clarifying order from the governor that confirms police and other public safety officials are subject to the mandate. The same considerations that demand teachers and school staff, firefighters and other emergency responders be vaccinated apply with equal force to police officers.
The decision about whether and which Oregon public officials should be subjected to vaccine mandates should be made by the officials elected by the people of Oregon, informed by science and sound public policy considerations. Bluster and threat have no place here. Allowing the Portland police to bully their way to a vaccine exemption not only puts officers and the public at risk, it further indulges the poisonous entitlement where police agencies feel free to flout civilian oversight without consequence.
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September 12, 2021 at 08:30PM
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