Federal Judge Blocks Biden’s Federal Contractor Vaccine Mandate

A federal judge in Kentucky issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday against President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors and subcontractors.

“U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, who serves the Eastern District of Kentucky, issued the opinion and order Tuesday afternoon,” the Lexington Herald Leader reported. “It came in response to a challenge from Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who joined many other state attorneys general in challenging the mandate.”

“This is not a case about whether vaccines are effective. They are,” Van Tatenhove wrote. “Nor is this a case about whether the government, at some level, and in some circumstances, can require citizens to obtain vaccines. It can.”

He explained that the case was about if Biden could impose vaccines on the employees of government contractors and subcontractors, which “in all likelihood, the answer to that question is no,” he said.

The ruling comes the day after a different federal judge placed a halt on Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for U.S. workers, calling the requirement a “politically and economically vast, federalism-altering, and boundary-pushing mandate.”

“The scale falls clearly in favor of healthcare facilities operating with some unvaccinated employees, staff, trainees, students, volunteers and contractors, rather than the swift, irremediable impact of requiring healthcare facilities to choose between two undesirable choices — providing substandard care or providing no healthcare at all,” U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp wrote in a 32-page order.

The New York Post explained, the “requirement would have affected more than 17 million workers in about 76,000 health care facilities and home health care providers. Under the rule, announced Nov. 4, those affected would have to get their first dose of a vaccine by Dec. 6 and their second shot by Jan. 4.”

“A previous ruling against the Biden administration temporarily blocked a rule that private businesses with more than 100 employees require workers to be vaccinated or face weekly testing,” the Post added.