The Covid Accountability Resolution Congress Must Pass

For years, Americans have called for a genuine reckoning—an authoritative acknowledgment of the abuses and failures that unfolded during the Covid years. The consequences remain everywhere around us.

But what would real accountability look like? The UK’s ongoing inquiry shows how easily an “official commission” becomes yet another exercise in establishment gaslighting. Anything short of full and honest condemnation will never match the empirical reality of what the public endured.

In the United States, leaders and advocates associated with organizations such as Health Freedom Defense Fund, Children’s Health Defense, MAHA Action, Autism Action Network, Stand for Health Freedom, Global Wellness Forum, and the Brownstone Institute have begun circulating a draft Senate resolution. It is not a cure-all, but it would mark a much-needed beginning. Whether it ultimately succeeds with bipartisan support—or even receives a vote—remains to be seen.

The text below reflects the most stable draft to date. Brownstone assumes responsibility for its current form, while acknowledging contributions from those affiliated with the organizations above. It remains a work in progress. Whether it ever becomes reality is uncertain. But it is worth striving for.

A RESOLUTION

To affirm the permanent lessons of the Covid-19 response, to repudiate emergency measures incompatible with constitutional liberty, and to establish binding principles for any future public-health emergency.

Whereas the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020–2023 caused the most extensive and prolonged suspension of civil liberties in American history;

Whereas many interventions adopted in the name of public health—at the federal, state, and local levels—lacked reliable evidence, were often arbitrary, imposed disproportionate harm on working-class and vulnerable populations, and violated foundational principles of limited government;

Whereas, with the clarity of hindsight, the Senate recognizes that certain categories of interventions must never be repeated;

Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate—

(1) Declares that the following actions, however well-intentioned at the time, were grave mistakes that must not be repeated in any future public-health emergency:

(a) Prolonged closure of schools at all levels, which inflicted measurable and lasting harm on children’s education, mental health, and social development without demonstrating meaningful benefit to community transmission beyond what targeted protection of vulnerable adults could have achieved;

(b) Indefinite closure or capacity restriction of private businesses deemed “non-essential,” including restaurants, gyms, salons, places of worship, and small retailers;

(c) Universal, population-wide mask mandates issued without individualized medical exceptions that protect bodily autonomy;

(d) Stay-at-home orders that confined healthy citizens to their homes for extended periods, criminalized ordinary outdoor activity, and divided workers into “essential” and “non-essential” categories;

(e) Restrictions on access to routine medical care, including dental and diagnostic services, leading to widespread delays in detection and treatment of non-Covid conditions;

(f) Agency-driven suppression of known or plausible therapeutics for respiratory viruses, including the obstruction of physician-directed treatment;

(g) CDC-issued eviction moratoriums that exceeded statutory authority and destabilized property rights;

(h) Vaccine mandates—whether direct or indirect—imposed on private employees, healthcare workers, service members, students, or any citizen as a condition of employment, education, or civic participation;

(i) The creation or enforcement of vaccine-passport or immunity-status systems by government or by private entities acting under government pressure;

(j) Censorship, shadow-banning, deplatforming, or professional retaliation against physicians, scientists, or citizens who questioned official guidance or raised concerns about early treatment, natural immunity, or vaccine development;

(k) Transfer of unprecedented fiscal authority to executive agencies without clear Congressional appropriation, resulting in trillions in spending with inadequate oversight;

(l) Mandatory hospital protocols that undermined the doctor-patient relationship and individualized care.

(2) Affirms that the rights protected by the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments—and the unenumerated rights reserved to the people under the Ninth Amendment—are not optional during states of emergency.

(3) Establishes the following principles as permanent policy to guide all future emergency responses:

(a) Time limits: No public-health emergency declaration may exceed 30 days without explicit legislative reauthorization.

(b) Legislative primacy: No federal agency may impose nationwide mandates, penalties, or restrictions without specific statutory authorization enacted after the onset of the emergency.

(c) Protection of minors: Schools shall remain open for in-person learning absent a written determination by the state legislature that closure is the least-restrictive means of preventing imminent hospital collapse.

(d) Religious freedom: Houses of worship shall be deemed essential at all times and may not be subjected to restrictions more stringent than those imposed on commercial venues.

(e) Bodily autonomy: No American may be coerced, penalized, or excluded from employment, education, commerce, or civic life for declining any medical intervention—including vaccination—during an emergency.

(f) Transparency: All data, models, and advisory-committee deliberations supporting restrictions shall be released in real time, unredacted except for legitimate national-security concerns.

(g) Ban on censorship: No federal official may request, pressure, or incentivize any platform to suppress protected speech concerning pandemic policy, treatments, or vaccine safety.

(h) Compensation: Any business compelled to close or operate under restrictions shall receive full and prompt compensation for lost revenue at fair-market value.

(i) Automatic sunset: All executive-agency emergency orders expire after 30 days unless expressly renewed by Congress or a state legislature.

(4) Directs the Government Accountability Office to conduct annual audits of federal and state emergency-preparedness plans for compliance with these principles;

(5) Calls on the States to adopt parallel legislation and pledges cooperation with States that do so;

(6) Expresses the Senate’s profound regret for the unnecessary suffering imposed on the American people—particularly children, small-business owners, isolated nursing-home residents, and patients whose routine medical care was disrupted—by policies that placed uniformity above evidence, proportionality, and human dignity.

Let this resolution serve as a warning to posterity: America endured a pandemic, but the deeper wound was self-inflicted—the sacrifice of liberty in the name of safety. The lessons paid for at such cost must never be forgotten, and the rights surrendered must never again be so easily taken.

Agreed to by the Senate this _____