Republican governors attack Biden vaccine mandate

(File photo) US President Joe Biden speaks at a press conference after touring the Clayco construction site in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, U.S., Oct. 7, 2021. (AFP)

Republican governors began filing lawsuits yesterday to stop the Biden administration’s requirement that nearly 2mn US employers get workers tested or vaccinated for Covid-19, saying it trampled civil liberties. After President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said on Thursday he will enforce the mandate starting January 4, the states of Florida, Georgia and Alabama jointly sued in the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. “The federal government can’t just unilaterally impose medical policy under the guise of workplace regulation,” Florida governor Ron DeSantis said at a press conference. The lawsuit by the three states, as well as two trade groups, two private companies and two schools, said the mandate exceeded the administration’s legal authority and conflicted with the First Amendment of the US Constitution and with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Republican governors of more than a dozen other states also vowed to challenge the mandate in court and several cases were filed by private employers. The regulation was implemented as a rarely used emergency rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal workplace regulator. “Biden just announced his plan to wield OSHA to mandate vaccines on private businesses,” Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, a Republican, wrote on Twitter. “I’m announcing my plan to sue him once this illegal, unconstitutional regulation hits the Federal Register.” Texas is among the Republican-led states that have issued executive orders or enacted laws that ban Covid-19 vaccine mandates or prevent employers from seeking an employee’s vaccination status. OSHA said the rule takes precedence over conflicting state laws. Responding to opponents of the rule, a senior administration official said OSHA clearly has the authority to act to protect workers from health and safety hazards. Covid-19 has killed more than 745,000 people in the US. Biden said in September that patience was wearing thin with the 30% of Americans who remain unvaccinated and who made up the vast majority of those hospitalised during the most recent wave of Covid-19 infections. Mandates have been used by private businesses and local governments to drive up Covid-19 vaccination rates and courts have generally upheld them because states typically have the power to regulate healthcare within their borders.