![]() The idea that agencies must have explicit instructions from Congress when regulating matters of significant political and economic weight has been called the “major question” doctrine. Other courts have concluded that the federal mandates run afoul of the law because the executive branch is implementing them unilaterally, without express sanction from Congress. The employer mandate – which is being implemented by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – was given the green light by a separate appeals court that wiped away the 5th Circuit’s decision. Not every lower court considering federal vaccine requirements has taken such sweeping views on the limits of federal authority in this area, and some courts have backed the legality of Biden’s vaccine moves. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, in one of the most aggressive opinions against a Biden mandate, said the vaccine rule for large employers likely exceeded “federal government’s authority under the Commerce Clause because it regulates noneconomic inactivity that falls squarely within the States’ police power.” īut Biden’s vaccine rules – which do include religious exemptions – have run into claims that the federal mandates encroach on the sovereignty of the states. In this current pandemic, the high court’s right wing has expressed concerns about vaccine rules that don’t adequately accommodate religious objections, yet the mandates have stood. State governments, too, have been mostly seen by judges as having broad authority to require vaccines, as established by a 1905 Supreme Court decision that upheld Massachusetts’ smallpox inoculation requirement. Lower courts have been mostly permissive of vaccine mandates imposed by private companies. Less leeway to require vaccines than state or private entities What kind of authority does the federal government have? What kind of authority do federal agencies have? And does that matter to the Supreme Court? I think the answer is, it might.” “That goes all the way back to the founding of the country – the police power that’s retained by the states. “There are different issues raised when the entity that is doing the mandating is federal, and not a state actor,” said Zack Buck, a University of Tennessee College of Law professor who specializes in health law. The justices scheduled expedited hearings in the cases, even though the lawsuits are still in a preliminary stage where courts aren’t making final rulings on the merits but deciding whether mandates should be frozen while the litigation plays out. On January 7, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the federal mandate for health care workers and the testing-or-vaccine rules for large employers. Many of the court decisions blocking the mandates have backed claims of executive branch overreach while playing down the scientific rationale for requiring vaccines. Three of President Joe Biden’s major mandates – the health care worker vaccine requirement for more than 10 million people, the rules for companies with more than 100 employees and the mandate on some federal contractors – have attracted court rulings against them. So far, the Biden administration has run into major headwinds in its effort to defend the federal vaccine rules that have been challenged in court. “This isn’t really a case about emergency public health powers or even vaccination law, so much as it’s a case about how much flexibility do administrative agencies have to respond to a problem or a threat without waiting for specific authorization from Congress,” said Lindsay Wiley, a health law professor at American University’s Washington School of Law. Depending on how the court rules, agencies could be hamstring in any situation where they’re implementing regulations that address changing circumstances without waiting for the slow-moving process of congressional lawmaking. How the 6-3 Supreme Court resolves those cases could have implications for the executive branch’s power to act unilaterally not just on Covid-19. While the court has been tolerant so far of vaccine mandates that have come before it – refusing to halt requirements imposed by local and state entities – those implemented by the federal government pose new legal questions that could draw hostility from the conservative majority. A Supreme Court that has declined to block several types of vaccine mandates is now considering whether to allow the Biden administration to require millions of Americans to get Covid-19 vaccines.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |