A Louisiana federal judge blocks Biden’s vaccine mandate for U.S. health workers “to avoid erosion of our liberties.”
QUICK FACTS:
- A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday to halt the start of President Biden’s national vaccine mandate for health care workers, which had been set to begin next week, The New York Times reports.
- Louisiana Western District U.S. Judge Terry Doughty made the decision, following an identical ruling from Missouri U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp on Monday, expanding Schelp’s decision, which only covered 10 states.
- “There is no question that mandating a vaccine to 10.3 million health care workers is something that should be done by Congress, not a government agency,” Judge Doughty wrote, adding that it “is not clear that even an act of Congress mandating a vaccine would be constitutional.”
- “If the executive branch is allowed to usurp the power of the legislative branch to make laws, two of the three powers conferred by our Constitution would be in the same hands,” he went on to say. “If human nature and history teach anything, it is that civil liberties face grave risks when governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency.”
- “During a pandemic such as this one, it is even more important to safeguard the separation of powers set forth in our Constitution to avoid erosion of our liberties.”
