President Joe Biden’s federal vaccine mandate, which requires that every company with 100 or more employees require COVID-19 vaccines, will remain on hold.
President Joe Biden’s federal vaccine mandate, which requires that every company with 100 or more employees require COVID-19 vaccines, will remain on hold.
A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday to uphold its previous decision to put a hold on Biden’s order, which the court says is “staggeringly overbroad.”
A three-member panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans affirmed its ruling, rejecting the Biden administration’s argument that halting the vaccine mandate could cause dozens or even hundreds of deaths.
"The mandate is staggeringly overbroad," the opinion said.
"The mandate is a one-size-fits-all sledgehammer that makes hardly any attempt to account for differences in workplaces (and workers)," Circuit Court Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote, per Reuters.
"The public interest is also served by maintaining our constitutional structure and maintaining the liberty of individuals to make intensely personal decisions according to their own convictions - even, or perhaps particularly, when those decisions frustrate government officials," Engelhardt wrote.
As The Post Millennial previously reported, the rule was implemented through the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) agency on businesses with at least 100 employees to require staff to get vaccinated.
White House officials did not issue any statements at the time of the ruling, which was held as a victory by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, which joined in legal challenges along with other U.S. states and private organisations against the order.
"Citing Texas’s 'compelling argument[s]' the 5th Circuit has stayed OSHA’s unconstitutional and illegal private-business vaccine mandate", Paxton stated on Twitter.
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