Judge puts hold on mandatory vaccines for federal contractors

      A federal judge in Georgia has temporarily blocked enforcement of President Joe Biden’s executive order for mandatory vaccination of federal contractors.

      Judge R. Stan Baker of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia-Augusta, issued a nationwide preliminary injunction to stop implementation of Biden’s Executive Order 14042. The case was filed by the states of Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia as well as the Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. trade organization.

      The ruling went into effect throughout the US on Dec. 7. It applies nationwide because the builders trade group has members throughout the country.

      The judge, appointed by President Donald Trump, decided that Biden’s vaccine mandate did not have clear authority to go forward under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act.

      “The court finds that plaintiffs have a likelihood of proving that Congress, through the language it used, did not clearly authorize the President to issue the kind of mandate contained in Executive Order 14042,” the judge wrote.

      Baker also said the vaccine orders are laborious and costly to implement and would result in high rates of non-compliance by the Jan. 18 deadline, which could result in employees losing jobs.

      For example, Georgia Tech U. officials testified about the difficulties of rapidly creating a Web portal to identify who was covered by the mandate and to track who was vaccinated. About 20% of their covered employees appeared to be unvaccinated.

      While the judge noted that COVID19 vaccines are effective and the virus is a danger to the country, he said allowing the vaccine mandate to take effect on schedule would cause “irreparable injury” to the plaintiffs.

      “Declining to issue a preliminary injunction would force plaintiffs to comply with the mandate, requiring them to make decisions which would significantly alter their ability to perform federal contract work which is critical to their operations,” the judge wrote.

      A White House spokeswoman has indicated that the Biden Administration will continue to defend the vaccine mandate for federal workers and contractors.

      If an appeals court supports Biden’s Executive Order, the preliminary injunction would be overruled. Otherwise, a preliminary injunction generally remains in effect until a further order of the court, which could happen while the case is still ongoing, or after a trial on the merits. This could take months, or even years.

      Meanwhile, in other court cases, Biden’s vaccine mandates have gotten mixed responses:

• A group of federal employees and contractors on Nov. 8 were denied a preliminary injunction against the vaccine mandate in a federal court in Washington, DC;
• The state of Arizona on Nov. 10 was denied a preliminary injunction to stop the federal contractor mandate; and
• On Nov. 30, a federal judge in Kentucky issued a preliminary injunction against the federal employee/contractor vaccine order that applies only to Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee.

      Biden’s separate vaccine orders for healthcare workers and for private workplaces also were put on hold in several courts. The Justice Dept. is appealing some of those cases citing the fact that the judges had disregarded medical experts’ opinions regarding vaccine efficacy.

More information:
Georgia court decision: https://bit.ly/3EFX83E

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