President Joe Biden’s expanded COVID vaccine mandate for healthcare workers and many private sector employees could be challenged in court by a group of top state law officials.
Two dozen Republican attorney generals in a letter to Biden argued that the president’s proposed coronavirus vaccine requirement for as many as 100 million Americans would “drive individuals out of the workforce, including healthcare workers, at a time when the labor market is already too tight.”
They also argued Biden’s plan to enforce the mandate through the “rarely used” emergency temporary standard provision of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The lawmakers added that to justify its use it must be determined that employees are exposed to grave danger and that the order is necessary to protect employees from that grave danger.
The group urged Biden to reconsider the “unlawful and harmful plan and allow people to make their own decisions.”
“If your administration does not alter its course, [we] will seek every available legal option to hold you accountable and uphold the rule of law,” the attorneys general wrote on Thursday.
New York’s vaccine mandate was successfully beaten by healthcare workers after the state’s Supreme Court issued a temporary straining order blocking the rule for its lack of a religious exemption.
Providers have expressed support for Biden’s mandate after he expanded it to include all healthcare workers, instead of targeting just nursing home employees.
