On Friday, a federal judge in Texas blocked President Joe Biden’s order requiring federal employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
In the past few months, Biden has pushed several vaccine mandates, including one for large businesses and another for healthcare workers.
District Court Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown ruled against the Biden administration on the mandate for federal employees and federal contractors.
“The President’s authority is not that broad,” Brown wrote, noting his ruling was “not about whether folks should get vaccinated against COVID-19” or “the federal government’s power, exercised properly, to mandate vaccination of its employees”.
“It is instead about whether the President can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment,” Brown explained.
“While vaccines are undoubtedly the best way to avoid serious illness from COVID-19, there is no reason to believe that the public interest cannot be served via less restrictive measures than the mandate, such as masking, social distancing, or part- or full-time remote work,” he wrote.
“Stopping the spread of COVID-19 will not be achieved by overbroad policies like the federal-worker mandate,” Brown added.
Brown’s ruling is not final, but it stops the mandate from being enforced while the litigation is pending.
Shortly after Brown’s decision, the Biden administration announced it will appeal the ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. A ruling from the Fifth Circuit could potentially be appealed to the Supreme Court.