Tennessee court upholds employee rights to petition lawmakers in Blue Cross Blue Shield case

Published by the Tennessee Lookout, Reporter Anita Wadhwani – June 12, 2023

In October 2021, during a politically-charged special session of the Tennessee General Assembly to address the COVID crisis, Rep. John Ragan read aloud an email from a Blue Cross Blue Shield employee opposed to her employer’s vaccine mandate.

The employee, Heather Smith, was being given the choice between getting a COVID-19 vaccine or losing her job, the email to Ragan, an east Tennessee Republican, said.

Smith didn’t have a forward-facing job and her religious objections to the vaccine were being ignored, she had written. Smith was seeking “legislative protection for … individual liberties and rights relating to vaccine mandates.”