Attorneys general in 11 states have filed a lawsuit challenging OSHA’s vaccine mandate for workers in company’s with more than 100 employees.
The suit filed with the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, argued the mandate is unconstitutional. This from oneamericanewsnetwork.com.
The attorneys general contended the authority to compel vaccinations rests with the states and not the federal government.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt spoke out calling the mandate “unconstitutional, unlawful, and unwise.” He contended he sued “to protect personal freedoms, preserve Missouri businesses, and push back on bureaucratic tyrants who simply want power and control.”
BREAKING: This morning, Missouri led a coalition of 11 states in filing suit to HALT the Biden Administration's unlawful vaccine mandate on private employers, making us the first to file suit to stop this unconstitutional federal overreach.
More: https://t.co/hyfGKmV7a7 pic.twitter.com/rotzIAcK3Y
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) November 5, 2021
The attorneys general of Missouri was joined by those in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming in filing the lawsuit.
OSHA’s new regulations are set to go into effect Jan. 4 and require employees to be vaccinated or be tested weekly. They are also instructed to wear a mask on the job. A violation of the mandate could result in a $14,000 fine per case.
The core question of this lawsuit should be “Does the Federal Government have the legal authority to issue a vaccine mandate?” And many legal scholars have said the answer to that question is ‘No.’
As noted in an article from DCN on October 25, 2021, entitled The Unconstitutional Federal Vaccine Mandate:
The Tenth Amendment, though often ignored or neglected, explicitly excludes powers to the federal government that are not granted to it in the Constitution (or implied by the powers that are granted), the effect is that the federal government does not have general “police powers”. The legal phrase describing the federal government is that it has “limited and enumerated powers.”
The foundational and still-controlling legal authority is Jacobson v. Mass, 197 U.S. 11 (1905). In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a vaccine mandate issued by a town. The Court reasoned that the town’s legal authority flowed from the State’s general police powers. Massachusetts law empowered local boards of health to mandate vaccines for when a contagious disease has an outbreak. During a Small Pox outbreak, the Cambridge board of health mandated that all adults who were fit candidates had to be vaccinated or pay a $5 fine. The Supreme Court found that the concern about an outbreak of a deadly and contagious disease justified this use of the state’s police powers.
Specifically, the Tenth Amendment states:
Taken together, the Tenth Amendment and Jacobson leave no doubt that the ability to create vaccine mandates belongs to the states. The Federal Government has NO authority to issue vaccine mandates. A state’s mandates will be upheld as long as it isn’t enacted or enforced in an unreasonable, arbitrary, or oppressive manner (see Jacobson, at 39,40).
The attorneys general from the 11 states recognize this top-down vaccine mandate for what it is—overreach by the federal government.
