Becker News reported 24 state attorneys general issued a collective threat to sue the White House over the federal vaccine mandate Joe Biden issued in an executive order.
“We, the Attorneys General of 24 states, write in opposition to your attempt to mandate the vaccination of private citizens,” stated the statement sent to the White House this week.
“On September 9, you announced that you would be ordering the Department of Labor to issue an emergency temporary standard, under the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act , which would mandate that private sector employers require most of their employees to either get a COVID-19 shot, submit to weekly testing, or be fired. Your plan is disastrous and counterproductive. From a policy perspective, this edict is unlikely to win hearts and minds-it will simply drive further skepticism. And at least some Americans will simply leave the job market instead of complying.” warned the AGs.
It continues to describe the negative effects such a mandate would have on their economies as well as their citizens. The statement states that it will “further strain an already-tight labor market, burdening businesses and (therefore), threatening the jobs of even people who have received a vaccination Worse, many who choose to quit their jobs instead of following your directive will be critical healthcare workers. This is not idle speculation.
Biden was given an example of how the consequences are affecting the healthcare industry. They informed Biden that a New York hospital had recently announced that it would stop delivering babies. This announcement came after several New York staff members quit. Recent polling shows that these frontline healthcare workers aren’t outliers. Your President’s vaccination mandate is not only a threat against individual liberty but also a public health disaster that will displace and exacerbate a national hospital staffing crisis. This could have severe consequences for all Americans.
Joe Biden was accused of abuse of power by the AGs for claiming that the mandate doesn’t take into consideration the differences in work environments. The CDC estimates that more than 120 million Americans were infected by May 2021. This number could rise to tens of thousands of millions. One-size-fits-all policies are not rational decision-making.
In the statement, the legality of the federal mandate is also questioned. The statement also alleges that “Your edict also is illegal.”
“You propose to enforce your mandate through the rarely used emergency temporary standard provision in the OSH Act. According to the Congressional Research Service, the Department has attempted to adopt an emergency temporary standard only one other time since 1983 (and that one exception came in June of this year and is being challenged).” wrote the attorneys to Biden.
“An emergency temporary standard does not have to go through notice and comment and can be made effective immediately upon publication. Because of this lack of process and oversight, courts have viewed these standards with suspicion. Between 1971 and 1983, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued nine emergency temporary standards. Of those, six were challenged. The courts fully vacated or stayed the standards in four cases, partially stayed the standards in another, and upheld only one of the six.” warned the AGs.
In conclusion, the AGs stated that; “Finally, broadly mandating vaccinations (or weekly COVID-19 testing) for 80 million Americans, simply because they work at a business of a certain size, hardly seems ‘necessary’ to meet any such danger.”
They said that it was; “On the contrary, it is vastly overboard and inexact. There are many less intrusive means to combat the spread of COVID-19 other than requiring vaccinations or COVID- 19 testing. The risks of COVID-19 spread also vary widely depending on the nature of the business in question, many of which can have their employees, for example, work remotely. The one-sizefits-almost-all approach you have decreed makes clear that you intend to use the OSH act as a pretext to impose an unprecedented, controversial public health measure on a nationwide basis that only incidentally concerns the workplace.”
In their statement, the attorney generals reiterated that safety is achieved through discussion and not by executive order or coercion from federal officials.
“We thus urge you to reconsider your unlawful and harmful plan and allow people to make their own decisions,” the attorneys asked of Biden.
“If your Administration does not alter its course, the undersigned state Attorneys General will seek every available legal option to hold you accountable and uphold the rule of law.” warned the AGs on behalf of their states.
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming are represented on the letter to Joe Biden.
