Eleven U.S. states with Republican governors sued the Biden administration on Friday, trying to block a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors and arguing that it is unconstitutional and violates federal procurement law.
Declaring they are essential to the fight against COVID-19, President Joe Biden issued a pair of executive orders on September 9 requiring all federal executive and federal contractors to be vaccinated.
10 states filed a joint lawsuit in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri: Arkansas, Alaska, Missouri, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. Texas filed a separate lawsuit over the same issue, with Florida filed Thursday.
Lawsuits on Friday called the mandate “broad in scope” and “unconstitutional and illegal,” citing a constitutional amendment on state powers and federal government procurement laws.
The mandate “is an abuse of power, and we will not tolerate that,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a video on Twitter.
“This will only exacerbate labor shortages and supply chain problems that are hampering our economic recovery, and this will lead to unprecedented government intervention in our lives,” Reynolds said.
The White House has set a deadline for vaccinating federal contractor employees on December 8. However, this shows that contractors can be flexible in meeting this deadline.
US courts have largely upheld vaccination requirements set by employers, universities, states, and cities.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 58% of the US population is fully vaccinated, and over 66% have received a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
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