Biden asks SCOTUS to keep mandate

On the subject of vaccine mandates… 

The Biden administration on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to leave intact a workplace vaccine-or-test mandate as public health officials contend with the surging COVID-19 pandemic.

The administration’s brief, filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), comes in response to a legal challenge brought by interest groups and employers across the country who allege the health measure is an unlawful exercise of government power.

The central question in the case is whether Congress gave the executive branch the broad authority to impose such a sweeping workplace regulation, which applies to businesses with 100 or more workers.

To date, more than 820,000 people have died in the U.S. as a result of the global pandemic. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show unvaccinated people are 14 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than vaccinated people.

Challengers to the mandate have asked the justices to block the policy while the case proceeds through the lower courts, or take up a formal appeal of a federal appeals court ruling that preliminarily sustained the mandate.