President Joe Biden’s administration was temporarily blocked from enforcing Covid -19 Vaccines to workers.
Joe Biden has announced details to fight COVID-19 driving more progress and resulting in millions of Americans getting vaccinated, protecting workers, preventing hospitalization, saving lives, and strengthening the economy.
But two federal judges, Judge Kentucky and Judge Louisiana blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a coronavirus vaccine mandate on thousands of health care workers in 10 states that had brought the first legal challenge against the requirement.
District Judge Matthew Schelp, from St. Louis, U.S. has joined in suing states that include Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. All those states have either a Republican attorney general or governor. Similar lawsuits also are pending in other states.
The federal rule requires COVID-19 vaccinations for more than 17 million workers nationwide in about 76,000 health care facilities and home health care providers that get funding from the government health programs.
The Orders of Federal Judge Kentucky and Judge Louisiana, come one day after a federal judge in Missouri halted the mandate, which has a January 4 deadline in 10 states.
Doughty’s ruling applied nationwide, except in 10 states where the CMS was already prevented from enforcing the rule due to a prior order from a federal judge in St. Louis.
This Contractor ruling applied in the 3 states of Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, that consumes filed the lawsuit, one of at least 13 legal challenges nationwide against the regulation. It appears to be the first ruling against the contractor vaccine mandate.
Doughty wrote that the Biden administration does not have the authority to bypass Congress in this case, he said: “If the executive branch is allowed to usurp the power of the legislative branch to make laws, two of the three powers conferred by our Constitution would be in the same hands.”
He continued: “If human nature and history teach anything, it is that civil liberties face grave risks when governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency.”
“During a pandemic such as this one, it is even more important to safeguard the separation of powers set forth in our Constitution to avoid erosion of our liberties,” he added.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who spearheaded the lawsuit, said the ruling “pushes back on the overreach of power” by those who are “using the coronavirus as a tool” for control over people.
Officials in several states also praised the court ruling. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said “nursing homes were at risk of closure” if the mandate remained.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said the vaccine is the best defense against COVID-19, but medical providers “deserve the freedom and ability to make their own informed health care decisions.”