Supreme Court hears challenges to Biden’s vaccine orders
The Supreme Court was slated to hear arguments Friday on the legality of two initiatives at the heart of the Biden administration’s efforts to address the coronavirus in the workplace through vaccine mandates.
The challengers — states led by Republican officials, businesses, religious groups and others — say Congress has not authorized the measures, adding they are unnecessary and in some ways counterproductive.
The administration says workplace safety and health care laws have given it ample authority to take bold action in the face of a lethal pandemic.
The more sweeping of the two measures, directed at businesses with 100 or more employees, would impose a vaccine-or-testing mandate on more than 84 million workers. The administration estimated the rule would cause 22 million people to get vaccinated and prevent 250,000 hospitalizations.
The other measure requires workers at hospitals and other health care facilities that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. The requirement would affect more than 17 million workers, the administration said, and would “save hundreds or even thousands of lives each month.”
The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld state vaccine mandates in a variety of settings against constitutional challenges.
The cases before the court are different, as they primarily present the question of whether Congress has authorized the executive branch to institute the requirements.
The answer will mostly turn on the language of the relevant statutes and on whether the administration followed proper procedures in issuing the requirements.
The vaccination-or-testing requirement for large employers was issued in November by the
Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Employers are allowed to give their workers the option to be tested weekly instead of getting the vaccine, although they are not required to pay for the testing. The rule makes an exception for employees with religious objections and those who do not come into close contact with other people at their jobs, like those who work at home or exclusively outdoors.
Under a 1970 law, OSHA has the authority to issue emergency rules for workplace safety, provided it can show that workers are exposed to a grave danger and that the rule is necessary.
The second case, Biden v. Missouri, concerns a regulation issued in November requiring health care workers at facilities that receive federal money under the Medicare and Medicaid programs to be vaccinated against the coronavirus unless they qualify for a medical or religious exemption.
States led by Republican officials challenged the regulation, obtaining injunctions against it covering about half of the nation. Two federal appeals courts, in New Orleans and St. Louis, refused to stay those injunctions while appeals moved forward.
A third federal appeals court, in Atlanta, sided with the Biden administration.