The Supreme Court heard arguments Friday contesting two of the Biden administration’s most controversial COVID-19 policies — a vaccine-or-test requirement for businesses with at least 100 employees, and a vaccine mandate for most health care workers — as the country grapples with the latest wave of infections.
The court first considered the rule for large companies, which is scheduled to go into effect Monday and calls for businesses to face fines if they don’t comply by February. According to the White House, the rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would affect 84 million Americans.
Scott Keller, a former Texas solicitor general representing the National Federation of Independent Business, argued that OSHA is overstepping its power by enforcing the rule, saying that even if it was just a masking mandate, the agency “doesn’t have the ability to set a nationwide COVID rule by emergency rule.”
US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who argued in favor of the mandate, urged the court to reject “the argument that the agency is powerless to address the grave dangers” and claimed vaccine requirements are the “single most effective way of targeting” transmission of the virus or serious illness as a result of contracting it.
Conservative members of the court expressed skepticism about the rule, with Justice Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts suggesting the administration had overstepped its bounds. Roberts said it was “hard to argue” that officials had been given the power to act by Congress. Justice Amy Coney Barrett suggested that a problem with the rule was its broad scope. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Photo: Dana Verkouteren/Associated Press |
Justices consider whether federal government is overstepping its authority with mandates for healthcare workers and employees of large companies
A majority of Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism Friday of the Biden administration’s Covid-19 vaccine-or-testing plan for large employers but somewhat less concern about a vaccination mandate for healthcare workers, in a special session that examined the scope of the federal government’s powers during a fast-moving pandemic.
Over nearly four hours of oral arguments, in which most justices for the first time wore masks on the bench, Justice Department lawyers argued the Biden administration had clear authority to impose vaccine requirements, especially with Covid-19 cases increasing to new records. Lawyers for business groups and Republican-led states were equally adamant that the administration, even if well-intentioned, was crossing legal boundaries with serious consequences for workers and the economy.
The lengthy session, which took place in a sparsely populated courtroom closed to the public, saw the court’s six-justice conservative majority question how the Biden administration could impose regulations to protect Americans from Covid-19 that Congress hadn’t specifically contemplated when approving the Medicare and Medicaid programs and adopting the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.
Chief Justice John Roberts said it appeared to him that the administration had decided to use a variety of federal powers to encourage Americans to vaccinate against the novel coronavirus, rather than each agency independently deciding that such policies were appropriate.
If “the government is trying to work across the waterfront,” shouldn’t the court examine “why doesn’t Congress have a say in this?” he asked. And why isn’t confronting Covid-19 “the primary responsibility of the states?”
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar pushed back. “Congress absolutely has a say in this, and it spoke here,” through the 1970 law authorizing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration “to take action to protect workers from grave dangers,” she said.
The three liberal justices, meanwhile, were unified in stating that the current public-health crisis, along with broadly written federal laws, gave the administration wide latitude to protect workers and patients. But particularly on the vaccine-and-testing requirements for large employers, they found little support from colleagues whose votes will determine whether the regulations can go into effect.
Covid-19 “is by far the greatest public health danger that this country has faced in the last century,” Justice Elena Kagan said. “More and more people are dying every day. More and more people are getting sick every day…and this is the policy that is most geared to stopping all this.” That situation justified the administration using emergency power in “a circumstance that this country has never faced before.” --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to related stories and resources:
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