The Biden administration has suffered another major court defeat over its federal Covid vaccine mandates.
A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a ban that would have forced workers in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee who contract with the federal government to get the jabs. The court affirmed the ban in three states and blocked enforcement of the federal vaccine mandate for workers who contract with the federal government.
The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling that said the vaccine mandate was unconstitutional.
“We decline the government’s invitation to construe as authorizing the President to ignore the limits inherent in the Property Act’s operative provisions in favor of an ‘anything goes’ pursuit of a broad statutory purpose,” the panel wrote in its ruling.
The Biden administration has held back from enforcing the order while the matter is litigated in the courts. In November 2021, a federal judge had blocked the Biden rule for Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. The Biden mandate would require workers contracting with the federal government to wear face masks and be vaccinated for COVID-19.
In December, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a similar ruling ifor Indiana, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is a Republican running for governor, had brought the case before the court.
Cameron called the Sixth Circuit’s decision a “resounding victory against unlawful federal overreach into the personal medical decisions of Kentuckians.”
“We argued that the federal contractor vaccine mandate is unlawful and that the Biden administration does not have the authority to impose such a sweeping mandate on Kentuckians,” Cameron wrote in his statement.
My statement on the Sixth Circuit's ruling in the federal contractor vaccine mandate case: pic.twitter.com/tvOacerhzK
— Attorney General Daniel Cameron (@kyoag) January 12, 2023
“For over a year, the Biden administration has fought against us, but the court has agreed with our legal arguments and has halted the federal contractor vaccine mandate for Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee.”
The Biden vaccine mandates were unconstitutional from the beginning. It has taken over a year for the courts to remedy the injustice, and for far too many Americans, the damage is already done.