State Senator Mike Doherty (R-23), the leading movement conservative member of the New Jersey State Senate, objects strenuously to a possible COVID-19-fighting measure under consideration by members of the Joint Management Commission.

The commission includes the four executive directors and four representatives of the Governor Phil Murphy Administration.

Members of the group received a notice on Friday that the Commission will consider “a policy that will require anyone entering the Capitol to show proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test that has been taken 72 hours prior to entrance.”

The policy will cover members of the Legislature.

“I object 100%,” said Doherty, an avid critic of the Murphy Administration’s COVID-protecting measures.

Last month, the senator issued the following statement on mask mandates for children:

“We held a hearing this summer where medical researchers and health care professionals told us of the emotional and physical harm that comes from masking school-age children,” said Doherty. “That level of harm that we heard in graphic detail would only be multiplied for toddlers that have even less ability to understand why they’re being forced to wear masks they won’t want to wear.”

According to guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO), children aged five years and younger should not be required to wear masks “based on the safety and overall interest of the child and the capacity to appropriately use a mask with minimal assistance.”

Dori Howell, a director at a Warren County nonprofit that provides social services, echoed Doherty’s concerns.

“It is my personal opinion that Governor Murphy’s recent executive order to mask preschool children is a heinous act,” Howell said. “By the definitions used by the CDC and the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, this most certainly is child abuse. I am absolutely outraged by this blatant disregard for the emotional health and well-being of innocent children.”

“I don’t see Governor Murphy’s dangerous mask order as anything less than child abuse,” Doherty concluded.