The Biden administration does not have the power to force federal contractors to get the covid shot. That’s the ruling of a federal appeals court which said Monday the government cannot make it a requirement of getting a government contract.
The three-panel judge of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to affirm a lower court judgment that barred President Joe Biden’s September 2021 executive order in three states after Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi sued to challenge the rule.
These three states sued the Biden administration in the Western District of Louisiana in their capacities as federal contractors themselves, winning an injunction and stay by the district court.
In upholding the lower court finding, Judge Kurt Engelhardt, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said in his majority opinion (pdf) that a broad interpretation of the law could have given Biden “nearly unlimited authority to introduce requirements into federal contracts.”
He illustrated his point by saying that Biden could “hypothetically” mandate that all third-party federal contractors’ employees reduce their BMI (body mass index) below a certain number based “on the theory that obesity is a primary contributor to unhealthiness and absenteeism.”
The U.S. government has contracts with thousands of third-party contractors, and judges have indicated that the issue might affect up to 20 percent of American employees.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita touted the ruling as a legal victory against what he called President Joe Biden’s executive overreach.
Rokita, who joined with two other plaintiff states in the legal action, decried Biden’s “truly unprecedented” use of the federal Procurement Act to wield executive power to impose the mandate on third-party contractors.
“Hoosiers and all Americans should have the liberty to make their own decisions on whether to get vaccinated,” Rokita said in a statement. “That includes individuals who happen to work as federal contractors. No one should have to fear losing their jobs just because they opt against getting a shot.”
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry called the appeals court’s decision a “victory for freedom.”
“We will continue to stand up against these abuses of power that threaten us now and in the future,” he said in a statement.
The Department of Justice (DOJ), which according to internal emails directed censorship of Twitter posts about everything from Donald Trump to vaccinations, defended the Biden mandate in a court filing, saying Biden’s executive order, issued on Sept. 9, 2021, was justified under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, known as the Procurement Act.
The district court had disagreed, finding that Biden’s mandate fell afoul of the Tenth Amendment, which entrusts the “safety and the health of the people” to the politically accountable officials of the states.
–wire services