Two Supreme Court Justices got a tongue-lashing from Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) for permitting a health care vaccine mandate.
President Joe Biden’s administration received a split decision Thursday from the nation’s highest court in rulings delivered on mandating COVID-19 vaccines. The justices shot down the mandate on private employers with at least 100 workers. They agreed, though, he has authority to require vaccines for workers at health care institutions getting Medicare and Medicaid money, unless they have medical or religious exemptions.
The Supremes noted the Secretary of Health ordered 84 million Americans to either obtain a COVID–19 vaccine or undergo weekly medical testing at their own expense. “This is no ‘everyday exercise of federal power’,” the majority opinion said. “It is instead a significant encroachment into the lives—and health—of a vast number of employees.”
Dissenting justices objected, saying the majority was imposing “a limit found no place in the governing statute.” The majority opinion said the Organic Act that created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration charged the agency with regulating “occupational” hazards and the safety and health of employees.
The majority of judges agreed that, although COVID–19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an occupational hazard in most.
“COVID–19 can and does spread at home, in schools, during sporting events, and everywhere else that people gather,” they argue. “That kind of universal risk is no different from the day-to-day dangers that all face from crime, air pollution, or any number of communicable diseases.”
“Permitting OSHA to regulate the hazards of daily life—simply because most Americans have jobs and face those same risks while on the clock—would significantly expand OSHA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization.”
Florida’s governor called ruling against the OSHA vaccine mandate a “no-brainer” that “anybody who’s not a far-left jurist was going to come out that way.”
He blasted Justices Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts, though, for siding with liberal court members in upholding the health care workers mandate.
On a Friday podcast, DeSantis blasted the pair of justices for “joining with the liberals”, calling it insane.
The Sunshine State governor said his state has people that are working.
“In other states, they’re so short-handed, they’re actually bringing back to work nurses who are COVID-positive,” DeSantis said. “Meanwhile, the unvaccinated — likely immune through prior infection — and likely healthy nurses are on the sideline, fired.” DeSantis said Florida will “enforce its protections” for medical staff, which were developed in last year’s legislative special session.
“Roberts and Kavanaugh did not have a backbone on that decision,” he concluded.
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