Fifth Circuit Reaffirms Stay On Biden’s Workplace Vaccine Mandate
(Carmine Sabia) President Joe Biden took another hit as an appeals court has reaffirmed its stay on his vaccine mandate in the workplace.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to “take no steps to implement or enforce the Mandate until further court order,” Fox News reported.
This is the most recent development in what is likely to be a long, legal fight to determine the Constitutionality of the workplace mandate.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, one of the critics of the mandate, celebrated the court victory on Twitter.
“Citing Texas’s “’argument[s],’ the 5th Circuit has stayed OSHA’s unconstitutional and illegal private-business vaccine mandate. WE WON! Litigation will continue, but this is a massive victory for #Texas and for FREEDOM from Biden’s tyranny and lawlessness,” he said.
Citing Texas’s “compelling argument[s],” the 5th Circuit has stayed OSHA’s unconstitutional and illegal private-business vaccine mandate.
— Texas Attorney General (@TXAG) November 12, 2021
WE WON! Litigation will continue, but this is a massive victory for #Texas and for FREEDOM from Biden’s tyranny and lawlessness.
At Biden’s direction, the OSHA issued a rule earlier this month requiring U.S. employers with 100 or more workers to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergoing weekly tests for the virus by Jan 4. Businesses that don’t comply face thousands of dollars in fines.
The rule prompted a slate of legal challenges from at least 27 states as well as business and religious groups who argue the mandate is unconstitutional. Biden and other federal officials argue the mandate is necessary to end the COVID-19 pandemic and fully reopen the economy.
his follows the Fifth Circuit granting a temporary stay last Saturday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit originally made the decision pending further litigation, Bloomberg Law reported.
The order comes a day after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration officially published its vaccinate-or-test regulation, which was met by a flurry of lawsuits from Republican state attorneys general, companies, and other organizations seeking to block it. The emergency temporary standard is supposed to last just six months, heightening the significance of any delay before the rule gets full judicial review.
The three-judge Fifth Circuit panel that halted the regulation is composed of Judges Kyle Duncan and Kurt Engelhardt, who were both appointed by the Trump administration, and Judge Edith Jones, a Reagan administration appointee.
A group of companies led by BST Holdings sought the stay in the Fifth Circuit, where they filed suit on Friday seeking to have the measure voided. Challengers have similarly filed motions asking for the rule to be paused in other circuit courts.
With multiple lawsuits against the OSHA regulation filed in several circuit courts, federal rules for mulit-circuit litigation call for the cases to be consolidated and heard by one court that’s initially chosen by a lottery.
“Before the court is the petitioners’ emergency motion to stay enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Nov. 5 2021 Emergency Temporary Standard (the “Mandate”), pending expedited judicial review,” the court said.
“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,” it said.
The stay can be lifted by another court who takes the case, but the Fifth Circuit gave the Biden administration until Monday to respond to the plaintiff’s request for a permanent injunction.
“The Government shall respond to the petitioners’ motion for a permanent injunction by 5pm on Monday Nov 8. The petitioners shall file any reply by 5pm on Tuesday Nov. 9,” it said.
If the case makes it to the Supreme Court it may not be a victory for Republicans who want the mandate stopped as, in a recent case, some conservative justices sided with liberals to allow a vaccine mandate to continue.’
Conservative members of the Supreme Court sided against a group of healthcare workers in Maine who were fighting a vaccine mandate in the state.
