The Supreme Court heard two urgent challenges on Friday against President Joe Biden’s vaccination or testing mandates for large corporations and healthcare workers to test the limits of executive power amid a relentless pandemic.
The challengers are various religious organizations, private companies, and Republican-run states who have argued that Biden has no authority to prescribe a vaccine for them.
After hearing the first challenge, which was a private company arguing against the Biden Labor Protection Agency’s vaccination or testing mandate, the Supreme Court ultimately seemed somewhat suspicious of the mandates. The judges were particularly skeptical as to whether Biden, together with OSHA, was authorized to give such a mandate.
Chief Justice John Roberts regularly questions the jurisdiction, timing and authority of OSHA. Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who defended the mandate, made several allegations that were false or at least exaggerated. She said that COVID-19 deaths had peaked and that 100,000 children would be hospitalized with the disease. The data to support these statements are thin, if not nonexistent.
Judge Neil Gorsuch saw the crux of the problem, which was not the effectiveness of the vaccine, but who may require a mandate.
“Congress had a year to act on the vaccine mandate,” he said. “Now the federal government is going from agency to agency to circumvent its inability to get Congress to act.”
In the second case, where Republican-led states argued against Biden’s vaccine mandate on behalf of health workers in federal-funded facilities, judges and attorneys also spent much of their time arguing over who was authorized to give a vaccine implement: states or the federal executive.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh raised an interesting point that would support Biden’s mandate, noting that health care providers are not âcomplainingâ about the mandate as much as the judges would have assumed. The outcome of these proceedings does not seem as clear as the first.
While Texas did not specifically join any of these challenges, Attorney General Ken Paxton had sued Secretary of State Xavier Becerra of the Department of Health on several occasions over the mandate. On December 15, Federal Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump-appointed Justice granted an injunction temporarily suspending Biden’s vaccine mandate for medical personnel. The Ministry of Justice quoted that judgment in his Supreme Court suspension motion in the Biden v Missouri case.
âThis is a victory for freedom. The federal government does not have the ability to make health decisions for hardworking Americans, âPaxton said said after the federal court issued an injunction. “These unconstitutional mandates have no place in our country and they are not welcomed here in Texas.”
While not a flawless attorney general, Paxton has worked hard to ensure that the president, relying on executive privileges – even in a pandemic – should not be able to require Texans prescribed vaccines or require Texan business owners to do so do or lay off their employees.
Americans and Texans still have rights, and no governor or president should have the absolute power to repress them, even in a global health crisis.
As of January 4th, more than 61 percent of the population of Texas is five years of age and older vaccinated, with no federal mandates, just open communication, suggestions and old-fashioned common sense.
Texas Ranks Ranked 26th among COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people, yet it was one of the earliest states to to open again Companies and schools and passed a nationwide mask mandate for just a few weeks.
Texas is not perfect in its COVID response, but one of its many jewels is its commitment to freedom, its belief that people are and should stay naturally free to run their businesses, go to school and even go to hell order Alcohol at the door.
Supreme Court justices have so far hinted that they are not fans of executive assaults either if they go out of the state when religion collides with the pandemic. In the Catholic diocese v. Cuomo, a case over whether or not the state might shut down religious establishments during the pandemic, Judge Neil Gorsuch wrote“Even if the constitution has taken a vacation during this pandemic, it cannot be turned into a sabbatical.”
There are no pandemic cynics on the court, however; have all nine judges recently received their vaccinations and booster vaccinations. In the same case, Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote that “the COVID-19 pandemic remains extraordinarily serious and deadly” and that he “does not doubt the authority of the state to place tailored restrictions – even very severe restrictions – on attending religious services and secular” Meetings alike. ”
However, the Supreme Court recently did susceptible to targeted vaccination mandates when state and local officials demanded, a current challenge where they allowed vaccination for New York health workers. The Supreme Court has also repeatedly rejected religious objections to vaccination mandates.
They are expected to make a decision quickly and this could have far-reaching consequences for future management decisions.
Regardless of the outcome, Texas has done the right thing by repeatedly opposing Biden mandates that demonstrate such a zealous excess of power.
This story was originally published January 7, 2022 5:08 am.