If you thought President Joe Biden’s administration was finally done with pushing COVID-19 vaccine mandates, think again.
According to the Washington Examiner, Biden’s Justice Department moved this week to resume the enforcement of a vaccine mandate for federal employees that was blocked in January by a lower court.
The Department of Justice, through a federal appeals court, requested that the mandate resume, arguing that the judge who blocked the mandate in January — an appointee of Donald Trump — lacked proper jurisdiction to make that call.
The DOJ’s latest request comes on the heels of a reversal of another blockage from the same judge regarding vaccine mandates for civilian federal workers. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week in a 2–1 decision to reverse the block on the mandate.
The details
It was on Monday that lawyers from main Justice asked the appeals court to take “appropriate steps so that the government may resume implementation and enforcement” of President Joe Biden’s executive orders regarding the vax mandates for federal workers.
The attorneys argued that resuming the mandates is “justified by the serious ongoing harm to the public interest and to the government.”
Biden’s mandates for federal workers, most of which were announced in late 2021, met stiff and immediate resistance in the court system, including challenges from a 6,000 member group called Feds for Medical Freedom, which ultimately led to the mandates being blocked this year.
Notably, some 98% of federal employees have been fully vaccinated. Ninety-three percent of federal employees have had at least one dose of a vaccine.
The Biden administration was also shot down on the private front after a judge blocked the admin’s order for businesses with 100 or more employees to implement vaccine mandates and mandatory testing.
Playing with fire
It’ll be interesting to see how aggressively the Biden administration pursues reinstating various vaccine mandates, especially as the November midterms near, as Americans have overwhelmingly made clear that they’re sick and tired of the seemingly never-ending government control.
Democrats already face a potential political bloodbath at the polls come November, and it appears as if the Biden administration simply doesn’t care at this point.
Many believe that Biden should focus on issues that actually still matter to Americans, such as his crippling inflation and the ongoing immigration crisis at the southern U.S. border.
