BREAKING: US Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden Vaccine Mandate

While leaving the vaccine requirement for health care workers at any medical facility that get federal money, the vaccine mandate died today in a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Gorsuch.

The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers, dealing a blow to a key element of the White House’s plan to address the pandemic as cases resulting from the Omicron variant are on the rise.

But the court allowed a more modest mandate requiring health care workers at facilities receiving federal money to be vaccinated.

The vote in the employer mandate case was 6 to 3, with liberal justices in dissent. The vote in the health care case was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh joining the liberal justices to form a majority.

The employer mandate would have required workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or to wear masks and be tested weekly, though employers were not required to pay for the testing. There were exceptions for workers with religious objections and those who do not come into close contact with other people at their jobs, like those who work from home or exclusively outdoors.

Parts of the mandate concerning record-keeping and masks had been scheduled to take effect on Monday. The administration had said it would not enforce the testing requirement until Feb. 9.

The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, had issued the mandate in November, and it applied to more than 84 million workers. The administration estimated that it would cause 22 million people to get vaccinated and prevent 250,000 hospitalizations.

 

The conclusion of Gorsuch's decision makes it pretty obvious there's nothing that the Executive branch can do.

 

The question before us is not how to respond to the pandemic, but who holds the power to do so. The answer is clear: Under the law as it stands today, that power rests with the States and Congress, not OSHA. In saying this much, we do not impugn the intentions behind the agency’s mandate. Instead, we only discharge our duty to enforce the law’s demands when it comes to the question who may govern the lives of 84 million Americans. Respecting those demands may be trying in times of stress. But if this Court were to abide them only in more tranquil conditions, declarations of emergencies would never end and the liberties our Constitution’s separation of powers seeks to preserve would amount to little.

 

So, as with the Voting Rights Act and a host of other things, the Supreme Court expects Congress to act, one that will never be allowed to act by Senate Republicans.

 

This is how democracy dies.