The Honorable Matthew Ritter
AGO 2019-1
No. 2019-01
Connecticut Attorney General Opinions
Office of the Attorney General State of Connecticut
May 6, 2019
The
Honorable Matthew Ritter
Majority
Leader
House
of Representatives
State
Capitol
Hartford,
Connecticut 06106
Dear
Majority Leader Ritter:
I am
writing in response to your request for a formal legal
opinion from the Office of the Attorney General (the
"Office") regarding the "constitutionality of
eliminating the religious exemption for required
immunizations" that is set forth in Conn. Gen. Stat.
§ 10-204a(a).[1]
There
is no serious or reasonable dispute as to the State's
broad authority to require and regulate immunizations for
children: the law is clear that the State of Connecticut may
create, eliminate or suspend the religious exemption in
Section 10-204a(a) in accordance with its well-settled power
to protect public safety and health. The exercise of this
authority is fully consistent with the Constitutions of the
United States and the State of Connecticut.
This
Office expresses no opinion regarding whether the State
should eliminate the religious exemption in Section
10-204a(a), or any other exemption from the requirement for a
child to be vaccinated as a condition to attending a school.
That is a policy decision entrusted exclusively to the
judgment of the legislature and the Governor.
I.
The U.S. Supreme Court Has Repeatedly Affirmed The Authority
of the States On This Issue For More Than 100
Years.
Federal
law has supported the authority of the states to require and
regulate immunizations for children for over 100 years. As
early as 1905, the United States Supreme Court recognized the
states’ authority to enact “health laws of every
description” to protect the public health and the
public safety. Jacobson v. Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 25 (1905). Jacobson
involved a Fourteenth Amendment challenge to the
constitutionality of a Massachusetts statute requiring
compulsory vaccination for smallpox. The Court, recognizing
that “a community has the right to protect itself
against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of
its members”, held that the state law did not
“invad[e] any right secured by the Federal
Constitution.” Id. at 27, 38. Notably, the
Court cited with approval several state court decisions
upholding “statutes making the vaccination of children
a condition of their right to enter or remain in public
schools.” Id. at 32-34.[2] Seventeen years later,
the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that Jacobson
“had settled that it is within the police power of a
state to provide for compulsory vaccination,” and that
such ordinances in the exercise of that police power may make
reasonable classifications reflecting the “broad
discretion required for the protection of the public
health.” Zucht v. King, 260 U.S. 174, 176-77
(1922). Accordingly, the Zucht Court held that a
city ordinance requiring immunization for school attendance
violated neither due process nor equal protection principles.
Id.
Twenty-two
years after Zucht, the U.S. Supreme Court cited
Jacobson for the proposition that the “right
to practice religion freely does not include liberty to
expose the community or the child to communicable disease or
the latter to ill health or death.” Prince v.
Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158...
