Ohio employers have plenty of requirements and standards for employees. As the people best equipped to understand what is necessary to run their own businesses — while keeping employees healthy and safe — policymakers generally allow employers to uphold those standards.

A couple of Ohio lawmakers, apparently desperate for Columbus to have even more control, don’t see it that way. Back in November, state Reps. Jennifer Gross, R-West Chester, and Scott Wiggam, R-Wayne County, introduced House Bill 319.

According to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal, the bill says “A business, employer, including an administrator or supervisor, health plan issuer, health care provider, hospital, institution, nursing home, person, political subdivision, private college, public official, residential care facility, state agency, or state institution of higher education” cannot deny or terminate employment, deny service, or otherwise treat differently an individual based on their refusal of any biologic, vaccine, pharmaceutical, drug, gene editing technology, RNA-based product, or DNA-based product for reasons of conscience, including religious convictions.”

One wonders whether they have read about George Washington mandating that ALL Continental soldiers be inoculated against smallpox, in 1777. As the National Park Service put it, “many historians credit the medical mandate with the colonists’ victory in the Revolutionary War and the creation of the United States of America.”

This and similar attempts to centralize power are reminders there is a small but vocal number in the party that once stood firmly for small government and local control who have either lost their way or are intentionally abusing their label.

THAT should have true Republicans seeing red.