Democrat President Joe Biden is urging businesses to implement vaccine mandates even though a federal court recently blocked it citing possible “grave statutory and constitutional” issues.
A senior administration official said, “We’re asking businesses to step forward and do what’s right to protect our workers and to protect our communities, which is to put in place some sort of vaccination requirement or testing requirements for the workplace.”
The Biden administration’s vaccine mandate, implemented and enforced through the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), forced businesses with 100 or more employees to vaccinate their workforces or conduct costly weekly coronavirus testing.
OSHA later suspended the implementation of the mandate after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit halted the mandate.
The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stated the following:
Before the court is the petitioners’ emergency motion to stay enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s November 5, 2021 Emergency Temporary Standard (the “Mandate”) pending expedited judicial review.
Because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate, the Mandate is hereby STAYED pending further action by this court.
Immediately following the release of the OSHA rule, The Daily Wire was the first major company to file a lawsuit against the Biden administration, as the company noted in a report last month:
The lawsuit does not take a position on whether someone should receive the vaccine or not, only against Biden’s mandate, announced earlier this year and unveiled on Thursday morning. The mandate applies to all companies with 100 or more employees and forces those businesses to police the vaccine status of their employees. The Daily Wire, with over 100 employees, falls under the mandate.
The Daily Wire’s lawsuit seeks to overturn Biden’s executive action, arguing that the order is unconstitutional and that the Biden administration violated federal law in drafting it.
Jeremy Boreing, co-founder and co-CEO of The Daily Wire, explained the company’s decision, saying, “We’re not the enforcement arm of the federal government.”
“Forcing Americans to choose between their livelihoods and their freedom is a grotesque abuse of power and we won’t be a party to it,” Boreing added. “We will not incur the cost of implementing this testing regime. We will not incur the liability of inserting ourselves into the private health decisions and information of our employees. Our company was founded to stand against tyranny, and we will.”
The Biden administration is expected to announce on Thursday that Americans with private insurance will be able to get at-home coronavirus tests reimbursed and will be announcing new testing requirements on international travelers entering the U.S.
