Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) will file a lawsuit in federal court challenging the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors, his office announced Friday. This from thehill.com.
Kemp and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) were joined on the complaint by leaders from Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia. It comes on the heels of a similar lawsuit filed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Thursday.
“In addition to being an unlawful and unconstitutional overreach, this vaccine mandate on federal contractors will only further divide Americans and hamstring our economy,” Kemp said in a statement.
The policy is scheduled to take effect Dec. 8, and will require all federal workers and contractors to be vaccinated against COVID-19, without a testing option.
The plaintiffs are asking the court for an injunction blocking the administration and federal agencies from enforcing the mandate on any contractor based in their respective states.
Both Kemp and Carr face reelection next year, and Kemp is likely to face a Trump-backed challenger after he ran afoul of the former president by certifying the 2020 election results.
“We will challenge this heavy-handed directive that not only serves as a clear violation of law but also places immense burden on our state,” Carr said in a statement.
Shortly after Biden announced the mandate in September, Kemp said he intended to sue to stop it.
Red state Governors have recognized this top-down vaccine mandate for what it is—overreach by the federal government.
However, keeping in line with the democrat leadership push for vaccine mandates, on Wednesday, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said the purpose of the mandates isn’t to punish people, and noted the deadlines for federal employees and contractors “are not cliffs.”
But what the hell does that mean? His words are nonsense.
Zients said federal employers and contractors will be expected to educate, counsel, and accommodate (Read: coerce) their unvaccinated workers to persuade them to receive the shot before terminating them.
The democrat misleadership knows it does not have the legal authority to issue a direct vaccine mandate, so the mandate is masqueraded as a work rule to hide it behind the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Final note: If the federal government can use the Interstate Commerce Clause to decide what vaccine you have to take if you want to be able to work, there is nothing to stop it from preventing you from being employable if you eat French fries, or drink alcohol, or have unprotected sex, or have too many kids, etc.
This law suit should be a slam dunk, however, given our compromised justice system all bets are off.