Legal Attacks On Biden's Vaccine Mandate Reach Supreme Court

Challenges mount after lower court clears way for employer mandate

Legal attacks on President Joe Biden’s employer vaccine mandate 
reached the Supreme Court Friday night after a federal appeals court 
cleared the way for its enforcement earlier in the day.

The justices were flooded with emergency appeals from red states and 
conservative legal groups within hours of the lower court’s 
decision. The mandate requires 80 million workers to get vaccinated 
or wear masks and pay for weekly tests.

The White House is warning employers to prepare for compliance with 
the mandate despite its uncertain legal prospects, sagging 
popularity, and relaxed enforcement guidance from the Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration. The pressure campaign is augmented 
by blue state authorities who are enforcing mask and vaccine 
mandates of their own in response to the latest COVID variant.

"Especially as the U.S. faces the highly transmissible Omicron 
variant, it’s critical we move forward with vaccination requirements 
and protections for workers with the urgency needed in this moment," 
White House spokesman Kevin Munoz said of the Sixth Circuit’s 
decision.

Vaccine disputes will dominate the High Court’s work going into the 
new year. The employer mandate appeals arrived at the Supreme Court 
Friday alongside a separate dispute involving the Biden 
administration’s vaccine rules for health care workers. Those rules, 
which cover 17 million workers, require any provider that takes 
money from Medicare or Medicaid to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4. 
Those rules are currently on hold in 24 states as a result of 
decisions from two different federal appeals courts.

Judge Jane Stranch delivered Friday’s 2-1 decision upholding the 
employer mandate. Stranch said the federal law that chartered OSHA 
gave the agency broad authority to fight "viruses." And she framed 
the administration’s rule as a flexible one that lets employers 
"choose the policy implementing those requirements that is best 
suited to their workplace."

"The virus rages on, mutating into different variants, and posing 
new risks. Recognizing that the ‘old normal’ is not going to return, 
employers and employees have sought new models for a workplace that 
will protect the safety and health of employees," Stranch wrote.

Judge Joan Larsen dissented from Stranch’s decision.

OSHA announced a grace period for employers in a statement following 
Friday’s decision. Employers have until Jan. 10 to comply with the 
rule. Testing requirements won’t be enforced before Feb. 9.

At least half a dozen appeals reached the Supreme Court on Friday 
night. Challengers include a coalition of red states led by Ohio, 
religious schools and homeschooling associations, and business 
groups like the Job Creators Network. Business groups say compliance 
costs the rule imposes are especially burdensome as they grapple 
with the double whammy of inflation and staffing shortages.

"This mandate will make it even harder for small business owners to 
find and keep employees," Job Creators Network president Alfredo 
Ortiz said. "The 6th Circuit irresponsibly upheld an illegal rule 
and expects employers to somehow comply with a complicated 
regulation in a period of two weeks, including the holidays."

Many of the appeals draw heavily from a dissent Chief Judge Jeffrey 
Sutton handed down on Wednesday, which argues the mandate is an 
unjustified federal overreach. Sutton’s opinion will likely be 
influential at the High Court, and it provides a useful roadmap for 
justices inclined to strike the mandate down.

It’s not clear how the justices will proceed. Using ordinary 
emergency procedures, they could resolve the dispute in a matter of 
days relying on legal briefs alone, and might give a short 
explanation for the ultimate result.

But the Court’s emergency procedures have come under sustained 
criticism of late, primarily from leftwing sources, and they appear 
to have rankled some members of the Court. As such, the justices 
might schedule an oral argument and issue a lengthier decision, 
which would likely take several weeks. The justices followed that 
route earlier this year in emergency cases involving Texas’s novel 
abortion law.

Several plaintiffs groups expressed openness to the second route, 
including the red state coalition and the Alliance Defending 
Freedom, a conservative cause lawyering group representing religious 
institutions fighting the mandate.


https://freebeacon.com/courts/legal-attacks-on-bidens-vaccine-
mandate-reach-supreme-court/