On Monday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Biden Administration’s rule mandating that all federal contractors receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, the 5th Circuit’s three-judge panel voted by a 2-1 margin to uphold a prior decision by a lower court that blocked the rule, first implemented by the Biden White House in September of 2021. That ruling came as a result of a lawsuit by the states of Indiana, Louisiana, and Mississippi seeking the overturning of the mandate.
In the ruling, the Appeals Court said that Biden only wanted to implement the mandate “to ratify an exercise of proprietary authority that would permit him to unilaterally impose a healthcare decision on one-fifth of all employees in the United States. We decline to do so.”
The ruling marks the latest major blow against Biden’s vaccine mandate efforts. Back in January, the Supreme Court ultimately overturned Biden’s attempt at forcing such a vaccine mandate on all private companies with 100 employees or more, dictating that all companies either get their employees vaccinated or have them take weekly COVID tests. The court ruled 6-3 that the order exceeded the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) because it was not first approved by Congress.
On the same day, however, the Supreme Court voted to uphold Biden’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers at federally-funded facilities.
Earlier in December, Congress came to an agreement on the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) spending bill to fund the military, including a major provision to end mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for all branches of the military, despite the protests of Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. A GOP effort to include a provision forcing the reinstatement of all military personnel who were fired for refusing a COVID vaccine ultimately failed to pass.