6th Circuit Delivers Another Smackdown to Biden Admin on OSHA Mandate

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Joe Biden just got some more bad news when it comes to his effort to impose vaccine mandates on Americans.

Last month, the 5th Circuit took the Biden Administration to the woodshed, upholding the stay on the imposition of the vaccine mandate on private businesses with 100 or more employees through an OSHA rule. While it wasn’t ruling on the underlying merits of the case, the 5th Circuit indicated that there were a lot of constitutional issues with the OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS).

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The Court called the mandate both “overinclusive” and “underinclusive,” “staggeringly overbroad,” and basically derided the Biden Administration’s effort to call it an ’emergency’ — when the threat has been going on for two years and OSHA didn’t even get around to making up the text of the rule for two months.

That was an indication that once it got to the decision on the merits, the Biden team was likely going to be in trouble. As we noted, the Court took into consideration the intent of the Biden administration, even citing the Ron Klain retweet of Stephanie Ruhle calling the effort “the ultimate work-around” to be able to impose a vaccine mandate on private businesses.

There were multiple legal challenges in regard to the ETS; they were consolidated and the 6th Circuit was selected by lottery to hear the consolidated ETS cases.

The 6th Circuit has now issued a ruling on a variety of motions in the case.

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The most significant takeaway is that there were motions to transfer the cases to the 5th Circuit and the D.C. Circuit Court. Those motions were denied, a big blow to the Biden team who might have hoped for a more favorable decision in the D.C Circuit. The 6th Circuit is more conservative in general, so that can’t make the Biden team very happy. The court also denied the motion to hold the case in abeyance.

The government moved to dissolve the stay in place; the Court said responses to the government’s motion had to be filed by Dec. 7, and the government has to respond by Dec. 10. But given the finding of the 5th Circuit and the harm that it would impose on the businesses if they had to comply with it, it seems to me it would be unlikely for the 6th Circuit to dissolve the stay.

So expect another smackdown to the Biden administration coming in the next couple of weeks on the matter. Joe Biden’s losses on the matter just keep stacking up.

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