SCOTUS Could Permanently Stop Biden’s Shot Mandates
Jan 3, 2022
The U.S. Supreme Court will hold a special session on Friday, January 7, in order to hear oral arguments for two separate challenges to the Biden administration’s shot mandates for businesses with over 100 employees and for health care workers at facilities receiving Medicaid and Medicare funding.
The cases cover two federal policies: the “Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard,” a shot-or-test mandate for 84 million private employees, and the “Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care Staff Vaccination Interim Final Rule,” a shot mandate for 17 million health care workers at facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding. The larger question in these cases is whether the federal government has the authority to force employers to require injections.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued its shot mandate for large employers on November 5 and requires any workers who remain unvaccinated to “undergo [weekly] COVID-19 testing and wear a face covering at work.” If allowed to take effect, it will force every large business to require proof of a negative COVID-19 test on at least a weekly basis or proof of vaccination from each worker. Companies that don’t comply would face fines up to $13,600 per violation, with a potential additional $13,600 fine for each day that an employer does not stop the violation. OSHA also could fine businesses up to $136,000 for willful or serious violations.
However, following a ruling out of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on December 17, OSHA announced it would not issue citations for non-compliance with any requirements before January 10, and will not issue citations for noncompliance with testing requirements before February 9, as long as an employer is exercising reasonable and good faith efforts to come into compliance with the mandate.
Since the 1970s, OHSA has issued nine Emergency Temporary Standards, six of which were challenged, and of those six, five were struck down by the Courts of Appeal.
Great news! Yesterday, U.S. Judge Reed O'Connor, the U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Texas, granted a temporary injunction against Biden’s federal vaccine mandate for 35 active-duty Navy SEALs and three reservists who sued the administration after seeking a religious exemption. The lawsuit was filed in Texas last November.
"The Navy service members in this case seek to vindicate the very freedoms they have sacrificed so much to protect. The COVID-19 pandemic provides the government no license to abrogate those freedoms. There is no COVID-19 exception to the First Amendment," O'Connor wrote in his ruling. "There is no military exclusion from our Constitution."
Moving forward in Navy SEAL 1 v. Biden, Liberty Counsel is:
* Filing an amended complaint with the court this week, adding more military plaintiffs, federal contractors, and other defendants within the Biden administration. The complaint will also include additional counts to strike down the vaccine mandate on federal civilian contractors.
* Awaiting the DOD (Department of Defense) to submit its first report to court THIS FRIDAY, January 7, 2022, detailing how the department has been handling religious exemptions. Many religious exemption requests have now been denied at the appeal level. According to the court order, these reports are now due every two weeks.
* Filing for an injunction next week against the Biden vaccine mandate on the military, federal contractors and federal civilian contractors and federal employees.
We will continue to fight in the courts until every unconstitutional mandate is outlawed.
https://youtu.be/qo3m2cTvNYo
Supreme Court To Hear Vaccine Mandate Case Jan. 7th
We are fighting at the Supreme Court against President Biden’s federal vaccine mandate. The Supreme Court has announced it will hear oral arguments on January 7th. The mandate that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) put forward to go into effect on January 4, 2022, requires employers of 100 or more employees to implement a mandatory vaccination policy for all employees with limited exceptions.
We filed an Emergency Application for Stay of Agency Action Pending Judicial Review and Petition for a Writ of Certiorari Before Judgment on behalf of The Heritage Foundation over this federal power grab. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, but the law will still go into place on January 4th. The government has untilDecember 30th to respond to our applications. And we will be filing a brief that is due on January 3rd.ACLJ Senior Litigation Counsel Abby Southerland explained what we’ve asked for:
We have asked the Court first for an application for stay, to go ahead and issue an emergency stay that is in line with the first action taken in this case by the Fifth Circuit which was to issue the stay. Which was then undone by the Sixth Circuit. Then, a Petition for Certiorari would ask the Court to review the merits of the case.
OSHA issued a statement to inform employers what to do in the interim:
To account for any uncertainty created by the stay, OSHA is exercising enforcement discretion with respect to the compliance dates of the ETS. To provide employers with sufficient time to come into compliance, OSHA will not issue citations for non-compliance with any requirements of the ETS before January 10 and will not issue citations for noncompliance with the standard testing requirements before February 9, so long as an employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the standard. OSHA will work closely with the regulated community to provide compliance assistance.
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